VacationSelector
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Sayulita or St. Pete Beach?

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 Sayulita for

  • getting around
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • families
  • day trips
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Pete Beach’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. Sayulita 80, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Sayulita 42, St. Pete Beach 40: Sayulita leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Sayulita 7, St. Pete Beach 18: St. Pete Beach leads by 11 points.
Nightlife. Sayulita 33, St. Pete Beach 28: Sayulita leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Sayulita 72, St. Pete Beach 57: Sayulita leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Sayulita 42, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Sayulita 42, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Sayulita 48, St. Pete Beach 30: Sayulita leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Sayulita 33, St. Pete Beach 20: Sayulita leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Sayulita 45, St. Pete Beach 32: Sayulita leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Sayulita 12, St. Pete Beach 20: St. Pete Beach leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Sayulita 58, St. Pete Beach 42: Sayulita leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Sayulita and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Sayulita
43match

Wins on getting around and wellness with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on families 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.

Sayulita in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
342 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

St. Pete Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
185 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
SayulitaSt. Pete Beach

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.

St. Pete Beach 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.

St. Pete Beach's sunshine is measured 34 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSayulitaSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m2 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSayulitaSt. Pete Beach
City population3,3908,879
People per km²-173
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Sayulita or St. Pete Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.