VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Los Cabos 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 Los Cabos for

  • wellness
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Los Cabos’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. Los Cabos 84, Palermo 77: Los Cabos leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Palermo 58: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Palermo 72: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 42 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Palermo 44: Los Cabos leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Palermo 50: Palermo leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Palermo 30: Los Cabos leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Palermo.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

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.

Los Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °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

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosPalermo

Where the figures come from

Los Cabos has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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. Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosPalermo
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation11 m14 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosPalermo
City population202,694630,167
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 Los Cabos or Palermo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.