VacationSelector
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral
The beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier, Virginia Beach
Virginia BeachThe beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier

Photos: Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License; Virginia Beach by SchuminWeb, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Palermo or Virginia Beach?

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
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Virginia Beach for

  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Virginia Beach’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 and Virginia Beach are level on 77.
Food & drink. Palermo 81, Virginia Beach 42: Palermo leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Palermo 80, Virginia Beach 30: Palermo leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Palermo 58, Virginia Beach 37: Palermo leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palermo 72, Virginia Beach 56: Palermo leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Palermo 84, Virginia Beach 64: Palermo leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Palermo 44, Virginia Beach 75: Virginia Beach leads by 31 points.
Getting around. Palermo 50, Virginia Beach 27: Palermo leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Palermo 44, Virginia Beach 32: Palermo leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Palermo 63, Virginia Beach 40: Palermo leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palermo 62, Virginia Beach 38: Palermo leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palermo 30, Virginia Beach 32: Virginia Beach leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palermo and Virginia Beach.

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 food and drink with your weighting.

Virginia Beach
46match

Wins on families and wellness 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

Virginia Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
152 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
PalermoVirginia Beach

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). Virginia Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Virginia Beach / Gatewood Park (5.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalermoVirginia Beach
Official languageItalian-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation14 m7 m
Main airportFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinationsNorfolk International Airport (ORF)20 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalermoVirginia Beach
City population630,167459,470
People per km²3,924-
Museums within 10 km422
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palermo or Virginia Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.