New Orleans or West Palm Beach?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose New Orleans if the trip is about eating, drinking and walking: the restaurants, bars and notable places sit packed close to the centre, and October and April are the comfortable months for it.
Choose West Palm Beach if you want the sea at the end of the street rather than 17km away, warm water in every month of the year, and protected land nearby for day trips.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. West Palm Beach leads by 49 points.49
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 39 | 88 |
| Swim season months | 7 | 12 |
| Beaches 10 km | 3 | 10 |
| Coast distance | 21 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 17 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. New Orleans leads by 24 points.24
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 37 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 803 | 262 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 25 | 14 |
Museums & heritage. New Orleans leads by 28 points.28
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 17 |
| Museums within 10 km | 42 | 5 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 30 | 3 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 71 | 60 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
Nightlife. New Orleans leads by 34 points.34
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 20 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 704 | 132 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 495 | 90 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 70 | 68 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 41 | 10 |
Nature & day trips. West Palm Beach leads by 44 points.44
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 69 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 15 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 89 | 45 |
| Park area within 2 km | 43 hectares | 34 hectares |
Good for families. New Orleans leads by 25 points.25
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 21 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 22 | 3 |
| Park area within 2 km | 43 hectares | 34 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 1 |
Sights concentration. New Orleans leads by 28 points.28
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 12 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 40 | 8 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. New Orleans and West Palm Beach are level on 43.
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. West Palm Beach leads by 7 points.7
| New Orleans | West Palm Beach | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 75 |
| Monthly daytime high | 17.1 °C to 33 °C | 24 °C to 32.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 94 mm to 194 mm | 67 mm to 217 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
New Orleans has roughly three times as many restaurants near the centre and a far wider range of kitchens, along with many more bars and nightclubs, most of them within walking distance of each other. Notable places and tourist attractions are similarly concentrated there.
West Palm Beach puts the sea at its centre, 0km away against 17km in New Orleans, with 10 beaches nearby rather than 3. Around it, 15% of the land is protected, against 4% around New Orleans, which makes day trips the more obvious plan.
Where they are alike
Both are warm places year-round. West Palm Beach holds 24-33°C across the year and New Orleans 17-33°C, so neither has a cold season, and both reach 33°C in high summer. Neither gets a month drier than 40mm.
Both keep a theme park within reach and park space near the centre, and in both the restaurants and drinking places sit close to the middle of town rather than scattered, though New Orleans has more of each.
Which traveller are you?
Someone travelling to eat and go out: New Orleans, with about three times as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and many more bars and clubs, nearly all reachable on foot.
A swimmer or beach-first traveller: West Palm Beach, where the sea starts at the centre, 10 beaches sit nearby, and the water stays at 21°C or more in every month of the year.
Families with sightseeing in mind: New Orleans, for its concentration of attractions and museums near the centre and its greater park space. Both have a theme park within reach, so that is not the deciding factor.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The value figure is a national price level, identical for two cities in the same country by construction, and this dataset carries no daily budget for either, so nothing in it tells you which trip costs more.
Sunshine hours are not recorded near either city, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured rather than poor. West Palm Beach's beach advantage also hides a timing problem: the warmest sea, 30°C in August, arrives in the wettest stretch of the year, 217mm, while New Orleans's hot months are also its rainiest.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). West Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (5.8 km from centre).
New Orleans is at its best in October, when highs sit at 27°C and rainfall drops to 94mm, and again in April at 26°C. Midsummer is both hot and the wettest stretch, at 169-194mm.
West Palm Beach is steadier from December to March: highs of 24-26°C, sea at 25°C and its driest months, 67-88mm. Its wet season peaks at 217mm in late summer, when New Orleans is also hot and heavy with rain.
Getting there
| Flying from | New Orleans | West Palm Beach |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 2 h 55 m €254-325 1 stop MSY · 18 km | 2 h 35 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 2 h 30 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 2 h 20 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 2 h 15 m €208-268 1 stop MSY · 18 km | 2 h 50 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| PhiladelphiaPHL, TTN | 2 h 45 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 2 h 30 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 1 h 30 m €106-150 1 stop MSY · 18 km | 1 h 40 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 1 h 30 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 2 h 45 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| BostonBOS, PSM | 3 h 15 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 2 h 55 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 3 h 50 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 5 h 5 m no fares DJT · 6 km |
| CancunCUN | 1 h 55 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 1 h 40 m no fares FLL · 72 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 9 h 25 m no fares MSY · 18 km | 9 h 0 m €550-628 1 stop MIA · 105 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | New Orleans | West Palm Beach |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | -2 m | 6 m |
| Main airport | Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre50 non-stop destinations | President Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre37 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | New Orleans | West Palm Beach |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 383,997 | 117,415 |
| People per km² | 423 | 786 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 4 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 39 | 18 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 7 months | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans or West Palm Beach somewhere new.