VacationSelector
Palm Springs
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town

Photos: San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or San Miguel de Allende?

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
  • families

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’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, San Miguel de Allende 4: Palm Springs leads by 3 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, San Miguel de Allende 62: San Miguel de Allende leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, San Miguel de Allende 62: San Miguel de Allende leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, San Miguel de Allende 38: San Miguel de Allende leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, San Miguel de Allende 40: Palm Springs leads by 38 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, San Miguel de Allende 32: Palm Springs leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, San Miguel de Allende 48: San Miguel de Allende leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, San Miguel de Allende 55: San Miguel de Allende leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, San Miguel de Allende 50: San Miguel de Allende leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs and San Miguel de Allende are level on 40.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, San Miguel de Allende 66: Palm Springs leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and San Miguel de Allende.

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.

San Miguel de Allende
Best match
48match

Wins on day trips and getting around 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
14 hdaylight a day

San Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsSan Miguel de Allende

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.

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsSan Miguel de Allende
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation146 m1,900 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsSan Miguel de Allende
City population44,57569,811
People per km²181-
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Springs or San Miguel de Allende 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.