VacationSelector
Palm Springs
Hawthorne Bridge and downtown, Portland
PortlandHawthorne Bridge and downtown

Photos: Portland by Cacophony, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Portland?

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

  • wellness
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Portland for

  • getting around
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Portland’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, Portland 20: Portland leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Portland 68: Portland leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Portland 38: Palm Springs leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Portland 52: Portland leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Portland 84: Portland leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Portland 58: Portland leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Portland 55: Portland leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Portland 62: Portland leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Portland 52: Portland leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Portland 38: Portland leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Portland 55: Portland leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Portland 42: Palm Springs leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Portland.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and culture and sights with your weighting.

Portland
Best match
52match

Wins on getting around and food and drink 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
14 hdaylight a day

Portland in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsPortland

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.

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). Portland: 1991-2020 normals, Portland International Airport (9.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsPortland
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation146 m152 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsPortland International Airport (PDX)10 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsPortland
City population44,575652,503
People per km²1811,736
Museums within 10 km317
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Springs or Portland 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. 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.