VacationSelector
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind

Photos: Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Barbara’s own page.

Choose Sayulita for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • wellness

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. Santa Barbara 60, Sayulita 80: Sayulita leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Santa Barbara 62, Sayulita 42: Santa Barbara leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Barbara 48, Sayulita 7: Santa Barbara leads by 41 points.
Nightlife. Santa Barbara 34, Sayulita 33: Santa Barbara leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Barbara 80, Sayulita 72: Santa Barbara leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Santa Barbara 55, Sayulita 42: Santa Barbara leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Santa Barbara 64, Sayulita 42: Santa Barbara leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Santa Barbara 46, Sayulita 48: Sayulita leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Barbara 45, Sayulita 33: Santa Barbara leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Santa Barbara 15, Sayulita 45: Sayulita leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Barbara 50, Sayulita 12: Santa Barbara leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Barbara 50, Sayulita 58: Sayulita leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Barbara and Sayulita.

Your match

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

Santa Barbara
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Sayulita
43match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
18 °Csea
14 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
Santa BarbaraSayulita

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. Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre). Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureSanta BarbaraSayulita
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
Elevation15 m2 m
Main airportSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta BarbaraSayulita
City population88,6653,390
People per km²816-
Museums within 10 km100
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 Santa Barbara 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.