VacationSelector
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Ottawa 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 Ottawa for

  • wellness
  • families
  • getting around

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

Choose Palermo for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • day trips

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. Ottawa 35, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Ottawa 45, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Ottawa 62, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Ottawa 35, Palermo 58: Palermo leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ottawa 68, Palermo 72: Palermo leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Ottawa 55, Palermo 84: Palermo leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Ottawa 68, Palermo 44: Ottawa leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Ottawa 62, Palermo 50: Ottawa leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Ottawa 40, Palermo 44: Palermo leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Ottawa 40, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ottawa 52, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ottawa 55, Palermo 30: Ottawa leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ottawa and Palermo.

Your match

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

Ottawa
51match

Wins on wellness and families with your weighting.

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
OttawaPalermo

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. Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOttawaPalermo
Official languageFrench, EnglishItalian
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation70 m14 m
Main airportOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOttawaPalermo
City population1,017,449630,167
People per km²3663,924
Museums within 10 km2042
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ottawa 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.