VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Montreal 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 Montreal for

  • wellness
  • families
  • getting around

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

Choose Palermo for

  • beaches
  • 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. Montreal 25, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Palermo 58: Montreal leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Palermo 72: Palermo leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Palermo 44: Montreal leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Palermo 50: Montreal leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Palermo 44: Montreal leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Palermo 62: Montreal leads by 14 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Palermo 30: Montreal leads by 27 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montreal and Palermo.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Montreal
61match

Wins on wellness and families with your weighting.

Palermo
62match

Wins on beaches 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.

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealPalermo

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. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealPalermo
Official languageFrench, EnglishItalian
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)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
Elevation31 m14 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealPalermo
City population1,895,211630,167
People per km²3,8063,924
Museums within 10 km3742
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montreal 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.