VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
Palm Springs

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Oaxaca 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 Oaxaca for

  • prices
  • food and drink
  • getting around

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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. Oaxaca 5, Palm Springs 7: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Palm Springs 40: Oaxaca leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Palm Springs 42: Oaxaca leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Palm Springs 36: Oaxaca leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Palm Springs 38: Oaxaca leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca and Palm Springs are level on 40.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Palm Springs 22: Oaxaca leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Palm Springs 44: Oaxaca leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Palm Springs 32: Oaxaca leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on prices 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.

Oaxaca in July

28 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
80 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
13 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

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaPalm 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. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaPalm Springs
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,555 m146 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaPalm Springs
City population258,91344,575
People per km²3,028181
Museums within 10 km103
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20

Where else could you go?

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