VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Victoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter, Victoria Falls
Victoria FallsVictoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Victoria Falls by Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Victoria Falls?

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
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Victoria Falls for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Victoria Falls’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, Victoria Falls 7: Puerto Vallarta leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Victoria Falls 24: Puerto Vallarta leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Victoria Falls 12: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Victoria Falls 8: Puerto Vallarta leads by 58 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Victoria Falls 94: Victoria Falls leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Victoria Falls 22: Puerto Vallarta leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Victoria Falls 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta and Victoria Falls are level on 45.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Victoria Falls 18: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Victoria Falls 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Victoria Falls 10: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Victoria Falls 34: Puerto Vallarta leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Victoria Falls.

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 nightlife with your weighting.

Victoria Falls
29match

Wins on 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
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Victoria Falls in July

26 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaVictoria Falls

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. Victoria Falls: 1991-2020 normals, Livingstone (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaVictoria Falls
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Xhosa, Ndau, Venda, Chewa, Khoisan, Kalanga, Shona, Tonga, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Northern Ndebele, Nambya, Zimbabwe Sign Language, Barwe
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+2
Emergency number911999
Elevation101 m961 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsVictoria Falls International Airport (VFA)18 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaVictoria Falls
City population224,16633,060
People per km²4,311-
Museums within 10 km22
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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