VacationSelector
Surfers Paradise from Narrowneck Beach, Gold Coast
Gold CoastSurfers Paradise from Narrowneck Beach
Palm Springs

Photos: Gold Coast by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Gold Coast 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 Gold Coast for

  • beaches
  • families
  • getting around

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

Choose Palm Springs for

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

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. Gold Coast 92, Palm Springs 7: Gold Coast leads by 85 points.
Food & drink. Gold Coast 47, Palm Springs 40: Gold Coast leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Gold Coast 15, Palm Springs 42: Palm Springs leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Gold Coast 55, Palm Springs 36: Gold Coast leads by 19 points.
Nature & outdoors. Gold Coast 82, Palm Springs 78: Gold Coast leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Gold Coast 52, Palm Springs 38: Gold Coast leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Gold Coast 89, Palm Springs 40: Gold Coast leads by 49 points.
Getting around. Gold Coast 45, Palm Springs 22: Gold Coast leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Gold Coast 40, Palm Springs 44: Palm Springs leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Gold Coast 35, Palm Springs 32: Gold Coast leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Gold Coast 30, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Gold Coast 42, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Gold Coast and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Gold Coast
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and culture and sights 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 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
Gold CoastPalm Springs

Where the figures come from

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

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. Gold Coast: 1991-2020 normals, Gold Coast Seaway (13 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGold CoastPalm Springs
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation12 m146 m
Main airportGold Coast Airport (OOL)20 km from centre19 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGold CoastPalm Springs
City population607,66544,575
People per km²433181
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 Gold Coast 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.