VacationSelector
Turquoise water off Giftun Island, Hurghada
HurghadaTurquoise water off Giftun Island
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Hurghada by Andrey Korchagin, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Hurghada 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 Hurghada for

  • families
  • prices
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Hurghada’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. Hurghada 84, Palermo 77: Hurghada leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Hurghada 34, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 47 points.
Culture & sights. Hurghada 14, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 66 points.
Nightlife. Hurghada 40, Palermo 58: Palermo leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Hurghada and Palermo are level on 72.
Day trips. Hurghada 30, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 54 points.
Good for families. Hurghada 62, Palermo 44: Hurghada leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Hurghada 22, Palermo 50: Palermo leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Hurghada 24, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Hurghada 80, Palermo 63: Hurghada leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Hurghada 10, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 52 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Hurghada 44, Palermo 30: Hurghada leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Hurghada and Palermo.

Your match

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

Hurghada
43match

Wins on families and prices 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.

Hurghada in July

37 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 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

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
HurghadaPalermo

Where the figures come from

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. Hurghada: 1991-2020 normals, Hurguada (15.2 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHurghadaPalermo
Official languageArabicItalian
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112
Elevation11 m14 m
Main airportHurghada International Airport (HRG)9 km from centre111 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHurghadaPalermo
City population214,247630,167
People per km²-3,924
Museums within 10 km142
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 Hurghada 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). 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. 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.