VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Zadar?

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
  • food and drink
  • wellness

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

Choose Zadar for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’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, Zadar 72: Puerto Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Zadar 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Zadar 55: Zadar leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Zadar 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Zadar 70: Zadar leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Zadar 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Zadar 58: Zadar leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Zadar 27: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Zadar 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Zadar 28: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Zadar 35: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Zadar.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

Zadar
51match

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

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaZadar

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.

Zadar 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. Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaZadar
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaCroatian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m5 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaZadar
City population224,16670,779
People per km²4,311-
Museums within 10 km21
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

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