VacationSelector
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind

Photos: San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

San Jose or Sayulita?

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 San Jose for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’s own page.

Choose Sayulita for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Sayulita’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. San Jose 30, Sayulita 80: Sayulita leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. San Jose 56, Sayulita 42: San Jose leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. San Jose 36, Sayulita 7: San Jose leads by 29 points.
Nightlife. San Jose and Sayulita are level on 33.
Nature & outdoors. San Jose and Sayulita are level on 72.
Day trips. San Jose 78, Sayulita 42: San Jose leads by 36 points.
Good for families. San Jose 65, Sayulita 42: San Jose leads by 23 points.
Getting around. San Jose 30, Sayulita 48: Sayulita leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. San Jose 48, Sayulita 33: San Jose leads by 15 points.
Affordability. San Jose 20, Sayulita 45: Sayulita leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Jose 38, Sayulita 12: San Jose leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Jose 30, Sayulita 58: Sayulita leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Jose and Sayulita.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

San Jose
45match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Sayulita
43match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Sayulita in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
342 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
San JoseSayulita

Where the figures come from

Sayulita 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. San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre). Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureSan JoseSayulita
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation25 m2 m
Main airportMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan JoseSayulita
City population1,013,2403,390
People per km²2,167-
Museums within 10 km190
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Jose or Sayulita somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.