VacationSelector
Whitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Palm BeachWhitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum
The lighthouse and the peninsula in evening light, Punta del Este
Punta del EsteThe lighthouse and the peninsula in evening light

Photos: Palm Beach by Khowald, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Punta del Este by Marcelo Campi, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Palm Beach or Punta del Este?

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
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Punta del Este for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta del Este’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, Punta del Este 72: Palm Beach leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Palm Beach 47, Punta del Este 45: Palm Beach leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Beach 45, Punta del Este 22: Palm Beach leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Palm Beach 32, Punta del Este 60: Punta del Este leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Beach 58, Punta del Este 55: Palm Beach leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Palm Beach 55, Punta del Este 45: Palm Beach leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Palm Beach 62, Punta del Este 55: Palm Beach leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Palm Beach 32, Punta del Este 35: Punta del Este leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Beach 66, Punta del Este 42: Palm Beach leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Palm Beach 12, Punta del Este 20: Punta del Este leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Beach 45, Punta del Este 22: Palm Beach leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Beach 55, Punta del Este 32: Palm Beach leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Beach and Punta del Este.

Your match

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

Palm Beach
Best match
49match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights with your weighting.

Punta del Este
42match

Wins on nightlife and prices 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

Punta del Este in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
101 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Palm BeachPunta del Este

Where the figures come from

Punta del Este's temperatures are measured 79 km from the centre, at Rocha.

Punta del Este 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (6.8 km from centre). Punta del Este: 1991-2020 normals, Rocha (78.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm BeachPunta del Este
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Peso Uruguayo (UYU)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFIL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m11 m
Main airportPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinationsCapitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (PDP)18 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm BeachPunta del Este
City population9,2459,277
People per km²322455
Museums within 10 km45
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Beach or Punta del Este 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. 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.