VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

El Nido 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 El Nido for

  • wellness
  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Palermo for

  • culture and sights
  • 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. El Nido 92, Palermo 77: El Nido leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 54 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 76 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Palermo 58: Palermo leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Palermo 72: El Nido leads by 15 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 76 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 4 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Palermo 50: Palermo leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 37 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Palermo 63: El Nido leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 55 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Palermo 30: El Nido leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Palermo.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

Wins on wellness and beaches with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 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°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoPalermo

Where the figures come from

El Nido has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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. El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoPalermo
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishItalian
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation35 m14 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoPalermo
City population51,367630,167
People per km²563,924
Museums within 10 km042
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow El Nido or Palermo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.

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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.