VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
Palm Springs

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Montreal 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 Montreal for

  • getting around
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Montreal 25, Palm Springs 7: Montreal leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Palm Springs 40: Montreal leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Palm Springs 42: Montreal leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Palm Springs 36: Montreal leads by 39 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Palm Springs 38: Montreal leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Palm Springs 40: Montreal leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Palm Springs 22: Montreal leads by 50 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Palm Springs 44: Montreal leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Palm Springs 32: Montreal leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Palm Springs 40: Montreal leads by 36 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 23 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on getting around and nightlife 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.

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Palm Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealPalm Springs

Where the figures come from

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. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealPalm Springs
Official languageFrench, English-
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation31 m146 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealPalm Springs
City population1,895,21144,575
People per km²3,806181
Museums within 10 km373
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00

Where else could you go?

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