VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Gastown, Vancouver
VancouverGastown

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Vancouver by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Vancouver?

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
  • nightlife

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

Choose Vancouver for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Vancouver’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, Vancouver 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 43 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Vancouver 72: Vancouver leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Vancouver 42: Vancouver leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Vancouver 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Vancouver 97: Vancouver leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Vancouver 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Vancouver 72: Vancouver leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Vancouver 73: Vancouver leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Vancouver 55: Vancouver leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Vancouver 27: Puerto Vallarta leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Vancouver 52: Vancouver leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Vancouver 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Vancouver.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Vancouver
56match

Wins on getting around and nature and the outdoors 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

Vancouver in July

23 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
42 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaVancouver

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. Vancouver: 1991-2020 normals, Vancouver Harbour CS (4.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaVancouver
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaFrench, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation101 m2 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsVancouver International Airport (YVR)9 km from centre109 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaVancouver
City population224,166662,248
People per km²4,3115,759
Museums within 10 km226
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Vancouver 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.