VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Rice terraces and palms at Tegallalang, Ubud
UbudRice terraces and palms at Tegallalang

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ubud by Pinterpandai, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Ubud?

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

  • nightlife
  • beaches
  • getting around

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

Choose Ubud for

  • wellness
  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Ubud’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, Ubud 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Ubud 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Ubud 58: Ubud leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Ubud 15: Puerto Vallarta leads by 51 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Ubud 80: Ubud leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Ubud 72: Ubud leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Ubud 48: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Ubud 10: Puerto Vallarta leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Ubud 52: Ubud leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Ubud 80: Ubud leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Ubud 47: Ubud leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Ubud 96: Ubud leads by 44 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Ubud.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on nightlife and beaches with your weighting.

Ubud
55match

Wins on wellness 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

Ubud in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
110 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
27 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaUbud

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.

Ubud's temperatures are measured 29 km from the centre, at Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai.

Ubud's station stands 209 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Ubud has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

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. Ubud: 1991-2020 normals, Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai (29 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaUbud
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaIndonesian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Rupiah (IDR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+8
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m210 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsDenpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS)29 km from centre64 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaUbud
City population224,166-
People per km²4,311-
Museums within 10 km214
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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