VacationSelector
Palm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms, Palm Springs
Palm SpringsPalm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Palm Springs by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Palm Springs 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 Springs for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

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 Springs 7, Pattaya 66: Pattaya leads by 59 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Pattaya 30: Palm Springs leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Pattaya 40: Palm Springs leads by 38 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Pattaya 52: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Pattaya 55: Pattaya leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Pattaya 42: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Pattaya 30: Palm Springs leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Pattaya 58: Palm Springs leads by 22 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

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

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches 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 Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
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°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsPattaya

Where the figures come from

Palm Springs 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 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 Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsPattaya
Official language-Thai
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation146 m35 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsPattaya
City population44,575119,532
People per km²181-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Springs 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.