VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
Palm Springs

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Charleston 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 Charleston for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • day trips

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

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. Charleston 72, Palm Springs 7: Charleston leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Palm Springs 40: Charleston leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Palm Springs 42: Charleston leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Palm Springs 36: Charleston leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Palm Springs 38: Charleston leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, Palm Springs 40: Charleston leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Palm Springs 22: Charleston leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Palm Springs 44: Charleston leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Palm Springs 32: Palm Springs leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Palm Springs 40: Charleston leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 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: Charleston and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Charleston
Best match
53match

Wins on beaches and food and drink 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.

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Palm Springs in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonPalm 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. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonPalm Springs
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation6 m146 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonPalm Springs
City population150,22744,575
People per km²532181
Museums within 10 km193
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston 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.