VacationSelector
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Palermo or San Jose?

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
  • prices

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

Choose San Jose for

  • families
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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 30: Palermo leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Palermo 81, San Jose 56: Palermo leads by 25 points.
Culture & sights. Palermo 80, San Jose 36: Palermo leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Palermo 58, San Jose 33: Palermo leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palermo and San Jose are level on 72.
Day trips. Palermo 84, San Jose 78: Palermo leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Palermo 44, San Jose 65: San Jose leads by 21 points.
Getting around. Palermo 50, San Jose 30: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Palermo 44, San Jose 48: San Jose leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Palermo 63, San Jose 20: Palermo leads by 43 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palermo 62, San Jose 38: Palermo leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palermo and San Jose are level on 30.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palermo and San Jose.

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
45match

Wins on families and shopping 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 in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
PalermoSan Jose

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. Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre). San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalermoSan Jose
Official languageItalian-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation14 m25 m
Main airportFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalermoSan Jose
City population630,1671,013,240
People per km²3,9242,167
Museums within 10 km4219
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 San Jose 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. 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.