VacationSelector
A purple lifeguard tower on South Beach, Miami Beach
Miami BeachA purple lifeguard tower on South Beach
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Miami Beach by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Miami Beach 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 Miami Beach for

  • nightlife
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Palermo for

  • prices
  • day trips
  • culture and sights

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. Miami Beach 92, Palermo 77: Miami Beach leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Miami Beach 62, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 19 points.
Culture & sights. Miami Beach 52, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Miami Beach 80, Palermo 58: Miami Beach leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Miami Beach 52, Palermo 72: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Miami Beach 55, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Miami Beach 60, Palermo 44: Miami Beach leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Miami Beach 58, Palermo 50: Miami Beach leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Miami Beach 55, Palermo 44: Miami Beach leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Miami Beach 20, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 43 points.
Live music & performing arts. Miami Beach 55, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Miami Beach 48, Palermo 30: Miami Beach leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Miami Beach and Palermo.

Your match

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

Miami Beach
57match

Wins on nightlife and wellness with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on prices 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.

Miami Beach in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
186 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Miami BeachPalermo

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. Miami Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (18.8 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMiami BeachPalermo
Official language-Italian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation1 m14 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)16 km from centre198 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMiami BeachPalermo
City population82,890630,167
People per km²2,1093,924
Museums within 10 km1442
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 Miami Beach 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.