VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
Palm Springs

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Kyoto 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 Kyoto for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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. Kyoto 15, Palm Springs 7: Kyoto leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Palm Springs 40: Kyoto leads by 45 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Palm Springs 42: Kyoto leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Palm Springs 36: Palm Springs leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Palm Springs 38: Kyoto leads by 58 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Palm Springs 40: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Palm Springs 22: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Palm Springs 44: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Palm Springs 32: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Palm Springs 40: Kyoto leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness 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.

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 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
KyotoPalm Springs

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoPalm Springs
Official languageJapanese-
CurrencyYen (JPY)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m146 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoPalm Springs
City population1,463,72344,575
People per km²1,768181
Museums within 10 km773
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kyoto or Palm Springs somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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.