VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
A painted funicular on the hillside, Valparaiso
ValparaisoA painted funicular on the hillside

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

Puerto Vallarta or Valparaiso?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Valparaiso for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Valparaiso’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, Valparaiso 36: Puerto Vallarta leads by 49 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Valparaiso 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Valparaiso 62: Valparaiso leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Valparaiso 56: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Valparaiso 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Valparaiso 63: Valparaiso leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Valparaiso 33: Puerto Vallarta leads by 32 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Valparaiso 44: Puerto Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Valparaiso 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta and Valparaiso are level on 60.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Valparaiso 38: Valparaiso leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Valparaiso 18: Puerto Vallarta leads by 34 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Valparaiso.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Valparaiso
46match

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
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Valparaiso in July

15 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
71 mmrain in the month
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaValparaiso

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.

Valparaiso 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. Valparaiso: 2010-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Viña Del Mar / Montemar (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaValparaiso
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation101 m21 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)87 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaValparaiso
City population224,166296,655
People per km²4,3116,180
Museums within 10 km217
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Vallarta or Valparaiso 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.