VacationSelector
Whitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Palm BeachWhitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Palm Beach by Khowald, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Palm Beach or Santa Fe?

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

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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, Santa Fe 5: Palm Beach leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Palm Beach 47, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Beach 45, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Palm Beach 32, Santa Fe 22: Palm Beach leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Beach 58, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Palm Beach 55, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Palm Beach 62, Santa Fe 45: Palm Beach leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Palm Beach 32, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Beach 66, Santa Fe 62: Palm Beach leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Palm Beach 12, Santa Fe 30: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Beach 45, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Beach and Santa Fe are level on 55.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Beach and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Palm Beach
49match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and culture and sights 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
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Palm BeachSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm BeachSanta Fe
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m2,134 m
Main airportPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm BeachSanta Fe
City population9,24587,505
People per km²322645
Museums within 10 km410
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Beach or Santa Fe 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.