VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Arequipa or Palermo?

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 Arequipa for

  • prices
  • getting around
  • wellness

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

Choose Palermo for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Palermo’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. Arequipa 8, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 69 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Palermo 58: Palermo leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Palermo 72: Arequipa leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 54 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 9 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Palermo 50: Arequipa leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa and Palermo are level on 44.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Palermo 63: Arequipa leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Palermo 30: Arequipa leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Arequipa and Palermo.

Your match

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

Arequipa
46match

Wins on prices and getting around with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches 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.

Arequipa in July

21 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Palermo in July

29 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
ArequipaPalermo

Where the figures come from

Arequipa's station stands 203 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Palermo 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.

Palermo's sunshine is measured 67 km from the centre, at Ustica.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Arequipa: 1991-2020 normals, Arequipa (9.2 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaPalermo
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaItalian
CurrencySol (PEN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number111 or 911112
Elevation2,335 m14 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaPalermo
City population1,008,290630,167
People per km²1,5513,924
Museums within 10 km342
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Arequipa or Palermo 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.