VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Valletta from the water, Valletta
VallettaValletta from the water

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Valletta by Pho Tomass, Pexels License.

Puerto Vallarta or Valletta?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose Valletta for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Valletta’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, Valletta 68: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Valletta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Valletta 76: Valletta leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Valletta 46: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Valletta 56: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Valletta 76: Valletta leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Valletta 58: Puerto Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Valletta 62: Valletta leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Valletta 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Valletta 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Valletta 44: Valletta leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Valletta 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Valletta.

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 nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Valletta
55match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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

Valletta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaValletta

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. Valletta: 1991-2020 normals, Luqa (5.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaValletta
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Maltese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m56 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsMalta International Airport (MLA)6 km from centre113 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaValletta
City population224,1665,197
People per km²4,3116,496
Museums within 10 km216
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Vallarta or Valletta 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.