VacationSelector
Whitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Palm BeachWhitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Palm Beach by Khowald, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Palm Beach or Pattaya?

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 Palm Beach for

  • shopping
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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. Palm Beach 82, Pattaya 66: Palm Beach leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Palm Beach 47, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 11 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Beach 45, Pattaya 30: Palm Beach leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Palm Beach 32, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 44 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Beach 58, Pattaya 40: Palm Beach leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Palm Beach 55, Pattaya 52: Palm Beach leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Palm Beach 62, Pattaya 55: Palm Beach leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Palm Beach 32, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Beach 66, Pattaya 42: Palm Beach leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Palm Beach 12, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 72 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Beach 45, Pattaya 30: Palm Beach leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Beach 55, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Beach and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Palm Beach
49match

Wins on shopping and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Palm BeachPattaya

Where the figures come from

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (6.8 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm BeachPattaya
Official language-Thai
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation2 m35 m
Main airportPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePalm BeachPattaya
City population9,245119,532
People per km²322-
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Beach or Pattaya 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). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. 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.