VacationSelector
The beach with the bay and the skyline behind, Acapulco
AcapulcoThe beach with the bay and the skyline behind
Palm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms, Palm Springs
Palm SpringsPalm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms

Photos: Acapulco by Felicia Navarrete, Pexels License; Palm Springs by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Acapulco or Palm Springs?

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 Acapulco for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm Springs’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. Acapulco 80, Palm Springs 7: Acapulco leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Acapulco 55, Palm Springs 40: Acapulco leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Acapulco 28, Palm Springs 42: Palm Springs leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Acapulco 64, Palm Springs 36: Acapulco leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Acapulco 50, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Acapulco 15, Palm Springs 38: Palm Springs leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Acapulco 45, Palm Springs 40: Acapulco leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Acapulco 30, Palm Springs 22: Acapulco leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Acapulco 32, Palm Springs 44: Palm Springs leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Acapulco 74, Palm Springs 32: Acapulco leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Acapulco 26, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 14 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Acapulco 32, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 48 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Acapulco and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Acapulco
44match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness 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.

Acapulco in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
226 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Palm Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
AcapulcoPalm Springs

Where the figures come from

Palm Springs 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. Acapulco: 1991-2020 normals, Acapulco, Gro. (5.9 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAcapulcoPalm Springs
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation18 m146 m
Main airportGeneral Juan N. Álvarez International Airport (ACA)18 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAcapulcoPalm Springs
City population658,60944,575
People per km²350181
Museums within 10 km33
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Acapulco or Palm Springs 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.