VacationSelector
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Palermo or Rotorua?

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

  • food and drink
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Palermo leads by 44 points.
Food & drink. Palermo 81, Rotorua 33: Palermo leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. Palermo 80, Rotorua 38: Palermo leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Palermo 58, Rotorua 14: Palermo leads by 44 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palermo 72, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Palermo 84, Rotorua 45: Palermo leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Palermo 44, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Palermo 50, Rotorua 30: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Palermo 44, Rotorua 22: Palermo leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Palermo 63, Rotorua 36: Palermo leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palermo 62, Rotorua 30: Palermo leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palermo 30, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 56 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palermo and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on food and drink and beaches with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
PalermoRotorua

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.

Rotorua 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). Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePalermoRotorua
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 m280 m
Main airportFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalermoRotorua
City population630,16758,500
People per km²3,92422
Museums within 10 km421
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palermo or Rotorua 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.