VacationSelector
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Palermo or Phuket?

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 Palermo for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Phuket for

  • wellness
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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. Palermo 77, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Palermo 81, Phuket 66: Palermo leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Palermo 80, Phuket 35: Palermo leads by 45 points.
Nightlife. Palermo 58, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palermo 72, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Palermo 84, Phuket 45: Palermo leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Palermo 44, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 21 points.
Getting around. Palermo 50, Phuket 22: Palermo leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Palermo 44, Phuket 42: Palermo leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Palermo 63, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palermo 62, Phuket 20: Palermo leads by 42 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palermo 30, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 52 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palermo and Phuket.

Your match

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

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Phuket
57match

Wins on wellness and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PalermoPhuket

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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalermoPhuket
Official languageItalianThai
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Baht (THB)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number112Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation14 m19 m
Main airportFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePalermoPhuket
City population630,16777,610
People per km²3,9246,468
Museums within 10 km422
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palermo or Phuket 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.