VacationSelector
The Adelaide skyline and the footbridge over the River Torrens, Adelaide
AdelaideThe Adelaide skyline and the footbridge over the River Torrens
Palm Springs

Photos: Adelaide by Ardash Muradian, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Adelaide 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 Adelaide for

  • beaches
  • getting around
  • food and drink

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Adelaide 68, Palm Springs 7: Adelaide leads by 61 points.
Food & drink. Adelaide 72, Palm Springs 40: Adelaide leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Adelaide 48, Palm Springs 42: Adelaide leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Adelaide 42, Palm Springs 36: Adelaide leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Adelaide 66, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Adelaide 60, Palm Springs 38: Adelaide leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Adelaide 70, Palm Springs 40: Adelaide leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Adelaide 57, Palm Springs 22: Adelaide leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Adelaide and Palm Springs are level on 44.
Affordability. Adelaide 40, Palm Springs 32: Adelaide leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Adelaide 63, Palm Springs 40: Adelaide leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Adelaide 42, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Adelaide and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Adelaide
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches and getting around 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.

Adelaide in July

16 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
72 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
10 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

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
AdelaidePalm 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. Adelaide: 1991-2020 normals, Adelaide (West Terrace / ngayirdapira) (3.1 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAdelaidePalm Springs
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9:30, UTC+10:30 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation1 m146 m
Main airportAdelaide International Airport (ADL)6 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAdelaidePalm Springs
City population1,387,29044,575
People per km²1,071181
Museums within 10 km133
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Adelaide 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.