VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
Palm Springs

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cartagena 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 Cartagena for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Cartagena’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. Cartagena 70, Palm Springs 7: Cartagena leads by 63 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Palm Springs 40: Cartagena leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Palm Springs 42: Cartagena leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Palm Springs 36: Cartagena leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Palm Springs 38: Palm Springs leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Cartagena and Palm Springs are level on 40.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Palm Springs 22: Cartagena leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Palm Springs 44: Cartagena leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Palm Springs 32: Cartagena leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena and Palm Springs are level on 40.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 40 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on beaches and nightlife 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.

Cartagena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
124 mmrain in the month
7 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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaPalm 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. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaPalm Springs
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation2 m146 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaPalm Springs
City population914,55244,575
People per km²1,599181
Museums within 10 km23
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 Cartagena 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.