VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo
TokyoShibuya Crossing

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tokyo by Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Tokyo?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Vallarta’s own page.

Choose Tokyo for

  • shopping
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Tokyo’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Puerto Vallarta 85, Tokyo 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 45 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Tokyo 84: Tokyo leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Tokyo 68: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Tokyo 85: Tokyo leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Tokyo 95: Tokyo leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 53 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Tokyo 99: Tokyo leads by 57 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Tokyo 48: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 54 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Tokyo 78: Tokyo leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Tokyo.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Tokyo
Best match
80match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Tokyo in July

30 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
157 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaTokyo

Where the figures come from

Puerto Vallarta has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaTokyo
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaJapanese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation101 m6 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsTokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaTokyo
City population224,16614,264,798
People per km²4,3116,501
Museums within 10 km2192
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Vallarta or Tokyo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.