VacationSelector
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan
A painted funicular on the hillside, Valparaiso
ValparaisoA painted funicular on the hillside

Photos: San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License; Valparaiso by Maclemo, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

San Juan 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 San Juan for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Valparaiso for

  • prices
  • day trips
  • getting around

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. San Juan 84, Valparaiso 36: San Juan leads by 48 points.
Food & drink. San Juan 66, Valparaiso 50: San Juan leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. San Juan 64, Valparaiso 62: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. San Juan 70, Valparaiso 56: San Juan leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Juan 74, Valparaiso 60: San Juan leads by 14 points.
Day trips. San Juan 52, Valparaiso 63: Valparaiso leads by 11 points.
Good for families. San Juan 58, Valparaiso 33: San Juan leads by 25 points.
Getting around. San Juan 38, Valparaiso 44: Valparaiso leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. San Juan 50, Valparaiso 30: San Juan leads by 20 points.
Affordability. San Juan 38, Valparaiso 60: Valparaiso leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Juan 55, Valparaiso 38: San Juan leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Juan 40, Valparaiso 18: San Juan leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Juan and Valparaiso.

Your match

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

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Valparaiso
46match

Wins on prices 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.

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Valparaiso in July

15 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
71 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
San JuanValparaiso

Where the figures come from

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. San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre). Valparaiso: 2010-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Viña Del Mar / Montemar (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan JuanValparaiso
Official languageSpanish, EnglishSpanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation3 m21 m
Main airportLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)87 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year21 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan JuanValparaiso
City population342,259296,655
People per km²2,8476,180
Museums within 10 km1817
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 San Juan or Valparaiso 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. 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.