VacationSelector
The City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh CityThe City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Ho Chi Minh City by trungydang, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Ho Chi Minh City 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 Ho Chi Minh City for

  • wellness
  • prices
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Ho Chi Minh City’s own page.

Choose Palermo for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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. Ho Chi Minh City 18, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 59 points.
Food & drink. Ho Chi Minh City 86, Palermo 81: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Ho Chi Minh City 55, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 25 points.
Nightlife. Ho Chi Minh City 70, Palermo 58: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ho Chi Minh City 28, Palermo 72: Palermo leads by 44 points.
Day trips. Ho Chi Minh City 58, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Ho Chi Minh City 40, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Ho Chi Minh City 38, Palermo 50: Palermo leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Ho Chi Minh City 55, Palermo 44: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Ho Chi Minh City 92, Palermo 63: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ho Chi Minh City 40, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ho Chi Minh City 60, Palermo 30: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ho Chi Minh City and Palermo.

Your match

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

Ho Chi Minh City
53match

Wins on wellness and prices with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches 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.

Ho Chi Minh City in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
285 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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ho Chi Minh CityPalermo

Where the figures come from

Ho Chi Minh City 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 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. Ho Chi Minh City: 1991-2020 normals, Ho Chi Minh (6 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHo Chi Minh CityPalermo
Official languageVietnameseItalian
CurrencyDong (VND)Euro (EUR)
SocketsACFG220 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 113, ambulance 115, fire 114112
Elevation13 m14 m
Main airportTan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)7 km from centre90 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHo Chi Minh CityPalermo
City population14,002,598630,167
People per km²2,0683,924
Museums within 10 km942
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 Ho Chi Minh City or Palermo 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). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.