VacationSelector
Surfers Paradise from Narrowneck Beach, Gold Coast
Gold CoastSurfers Paradise from Narrowneck Beach
Whitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Palm BeachWhitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum

Photos: Gold Coast by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Palm Beach by Khowald, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Gold Coast or Palm Beach?

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 Gold Coast for

  • families
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Palm Beach for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm Beach’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. Gold Coast 92, Palm Beach 82: Gold Coast leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Gold Coast and Palm Beach are level on 47.
Culture & sights. Gold Coast 15, Palm Beach 45: Palm Beach leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Gold Coast 55, Palm Beach 32: Gold Coast leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Gold Coast 82, Palm Beach 58: Gold Coast leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Gold Coast 52, Palm Beach 55: Palm Beach leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Gold Coast 89, Palm Beach 62: Gold Coast leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Gold Coast 45, Palm Beach 32: Gold Coast leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Gold Coast 40, Palm Beach 66: Palm Beach leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Gold Coast 35, Palm Beach 12: Gold Coast leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Gold Coast 30, Palm Beach 45: Palm Beach leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Gold Coast 42, Palm Beach 55: Palm Beach leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Gold Coast and Palm Beach.

Your match

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

Gold Coast
Best match
52match

Wins on families and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Palm Beach
49match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Gold Coast in July

22 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Gold CoastPalm Beach

Where the figures come from

Gold Coast's sunshine is measured 75 km from the centre, at Brisbane Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Gold Coast: 1991-2020 normals, Gold Coast Seaway (13 km from centre). Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (6.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGold CoastPalm Beach
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation12 m2 m
Main airportGold Coast Airport (OOL)20 km from centre19 non-stop destinationsPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGold CoastPalm Beach
City population607,6659,245
People per km²433322
Museums within 10 km24
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Gold Coast or Palm Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.