VacationSelector
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral
The Metropolitan Cathedral of San Jose, San Jose, Costa Rica
San Jose, Costa RicaThe Metropolitan Cathedral of San Jose

Photos: Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License; San Jose, Costa Rica by Bernard Gagnon, CC0.

Palermo or San Jose, Costa Rica?

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

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose San Jose, Costa Rica for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose, Costa Rica’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, San Jose, Costa Rica 12: Palermo leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Palermo 81, San Jose, Costa Rica 42: Palermo leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Palermo 80, San Jose, Costa Rica 38: Palermo leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Palermo 58, San Jose, Costa Rica 40: Palermo leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palermo 72, San Jose, Costa Rica 78: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Palermo 84, San Jose, Costa Rica 52: Palermo leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Palermo and San Jose, Costa Rica are level on 44.
Getting around. Palermo 50, San Jose, Costa Rica 30: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Palermo 44, San Jose, Costa Rica 36: Palermo leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Palermo 63, San Jose, Costa Rica 54: Palermo leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palermo 62, San Jose, Costa Rica 38: Palermo leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palermo 30, San Jose, Costa Rica 28: Palermo leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palermo and San Jose, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

Palermo
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights with your weighting.

San Jose, Costa Rica
41match

Wins on 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.

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

San Jose, Costa Rica in July

28 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
173 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PalermoSan Jose, Costa Rica

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.

San Jose, Costa Rica's station stands 241 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

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). San Jose, Costa Rica: 1991-2020 normals, Juan Santamaria (16.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalermoSan Jose, Costa Rica
Official languageItalianSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation14 m1,161 m
Main airportFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinationsJuan Santamaría International Airport (SJO)16 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalermoSan Jose, Costa Rica
City population630,167335,007
People per km²3,9247,511
Museums within 10 km429
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 San Jose, Costa Rica 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.