VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Palermo for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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. New Orleans 14, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 63 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Palermo 81: New Orleans leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Palermo 58: New Orleans leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Palermo 72: Palermo leads by 30 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 32 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Palermo 44: New Orleans leads by 11 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Palermo 50: New Orleans leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Palermo 44: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Palermo 62: New Orleans leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Palermo 30: Palermo leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Palermo.

Your match

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

New Orleans
54match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
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.

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °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

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansPalermo

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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansPalermo
Official language-Italian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation-2 m14 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansPalermo
City population383,997630,167
People per km²4233,924
Museums within 10 km1642
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.