VacationSelector
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Palermo or Queenstown?

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
  • beaches
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Palermo leads by 57 points.
Food & drink. Palermo 81, Queenstown 45: Palermo leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Palermo 80, Queenstown 12: Palermo leads by 68 points.
Nightlife. Palermo 58, Queenstown 42: Palermo leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palermo 72, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Palermo 84, Queenstown 50: Palermo leads by 34 points.
Good for families. Palermo 44, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Palermo 50, Queenstown 45: Palermo leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Palermo 44, Queenstown 28: Palermo leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Palermo 63, Queenstown 20: Palermo leads by 43 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palermo 62, Queenstown 14: Palermo leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palermo 30, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palermo and Queenstown.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
PalermoQueenstown

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.

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePalermoQueenstown
Official languageItalianEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyEuro (EUR)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number112111
Elevation14 m324 m
Main airportFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalermoQueenstown
City population630,16729,000
People per km²3,924-
Museums within 10 km420
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palermo or Queenstown 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.