VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
Palm Springs

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

  • nightlife
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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. New Orleans 14, Palm Springs 7: New Orleans leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Palm Springs 40: New Orleans leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Palm Springs 42: New Orleans leads by 25 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Palm Springs 36: New Orleans leads by 49 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 36 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Palm Springs 38: New Orleans leads by 14 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Palm Springs 40: New Orleans leads by 15 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Palm Springs 22: New Orleans leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Palm Springs 44: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Palm Springs 32: New Orleans leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Palm Springs 40: New Orleans leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 55 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink 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.

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Palm Springs in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansPalm 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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansPalm Springs
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation-2 m146 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansPalm Springs
City population383,99744,575
People per km²423181
Museums within 10 km163
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans 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. 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. 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.