VacationSelector
The Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos AiresThe Teatro Colón
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Buenos Aires by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Buenos Aires 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 Buenos Aires for

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Palermo for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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. Buenos Aires 7, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 70 points.
Food & drink. Buenos Aires 75, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Buenos Aires 71, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 9 points.
Nightlife. Buenos Aires 95, Palermo 58: Buenos Aires leads by 37 points.
Nature & outdoors. Buenos Aires 38, Palermo 72: Palermo leads by 34 points.
Day trips. Buenos Aires 60, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Buenos Aires 52, Palermo 44: Buenos Aires leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Buenos Aires 62, Palermo 50: Buenos Aires leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Buenos Aires 60, Palermo 44: Buenos Aires leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Buenos Aires 55, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Buenos Aires 75, Palermo 62: Buenos Aires leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Buenos Aires 28, Palermo 30: Palermo leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Buenos Aires and Palermo.

Your match

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

Buenos Aires
57match

Wins on nightlife and shopping with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches 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.

Buenos Aires in July

15 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
50 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 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

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Buenos AiresPalermo

Where the figures come from

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. Buenos Aires: 1991-2020 normals, Aeroparque Bs. As. Aerodrome (4.9 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBuenos AiresPalermo
Official languageSpanishItalian
CurrencyArgentine Peso (ARS)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCI220 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number117 or 911112
Elevation25 m14 m
Main airportEzeiza International Airport - Ministro Pistarini (EZE)28 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBuenos AiresPalermo
City population3,121,707630,167
People per km²15,3553,924
Museums within 10 km7642
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Buenos Aires 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.