VacationSelector
Palm Springs
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Palm Springs or Phuket?

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

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Phuket for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 83 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Phuket 35: Palm Springs leads by 7 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Phuket 45: Phuket leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs and Phuket are level on 22.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Phuket 42: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Phuket 20: Palm Springs leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 2 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches 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 Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsPhuket

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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

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). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsPhuket
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 m19 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsPhuket
City population44,57577,610
People per km²1816,468
Museums within 10 km32
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 Phuket 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.