VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Huatulco 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 Huatulco for

  • wellness
  • families
  • beaches

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

Choose Palermo for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • 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. Huatulco 86, Palermo 77: Huatulco leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 65 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Palermo 58: Palermo leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Palermo 72: Huatulco leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 44 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Palermo 44: Huatulco leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, Palermo 50: Palermo leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 53 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Palermo 30: Huatulco leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Palermo.

Your match

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

Huatulco
43match

Wins on wellness and families with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Huatulco in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
156 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °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
HuatulcoPalermo

Where the figures come from

Huatulco's temperatures are measured 42 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Huatulco's station stands 177 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Huatulco 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. Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoPalermo
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation220 m14 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoPalermo
City population7,409630,167
People per km²-3,924
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 Huatulco 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). 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. 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.