VacationSelector
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind
The top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Sayulita or Vail?

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

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

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

Choose Vail for

  • live music and the arts
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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, Vail 5: Sayulita leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Sayulita 42, Vail 35: Sayulita leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Sayulita 7, Vail 10: Vail leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Sayulita 33, Vail 30: Sayulita leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Sayulita 72, Vail 92: Vail leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Sayulita 42, Vail 45: Vail leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Sayulita 42, Vail 55: Vail leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Sayulita 48, Vail 62: Vail leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Sayulita 33, Vail 35: Vail leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Sayulita 45, Vail 5: Sayulita leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Sayulita 12, Vail 42: Vail leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Sayulita 58, Vail 48: Sayulita leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Sayulita and Vail.

Your match

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

Sayulita
Best match
43match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Vail
39match

Wins on live music and the arts and nature and the outdoors 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
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 mmrain in the month
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
SayulitaVail

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.

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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. Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSayulitaVail
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m2,445 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureSayulitaVail
City population3,3904,835
People per km²-400
Museums within 10 km01
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Sayulita or Vail 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.