VacationSelector
Palm Springs
The cathedral of Santa Marta, Santa Marta
Santa MartaThe cathedral of Santa Marta

Photos: Santa Marta by Oliver H, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Santa Marta?

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
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

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

Choose Santa Marta for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Marta’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, Santa Marta 70: Santa Marta leads by 63 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Santa Marta 44: Santa Marta leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Santa Marta 34: Palm Springs leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Santa Marta 50: Santa Marta leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Santa Marta 84: Santa Marta leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs and Santa Marta are level on 38.
Good for families. Palm Springs and Santa Marta are level on 40.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Santa Marta 38: Santa Marta leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Santa Marta 27: Palm Springs leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Santa Marta 80: Santa Marta leads by 48 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Santa Marta 17: Palm Springs leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Santa Marta 30: Palm Springs leads by 50 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Santa Marta
Best match
46match

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

Santa Marta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsSanta Marta

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). Santa Marta: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Marta / Simon Bolivar (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsSanta Marta
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911123
Elevation146 m8 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsSimón Bolívar International Airport (SMR)13 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsSanta Marta
City population44,575505,915
People per km²1811,723
Museums within 10 km33
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 Santa Marta 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. 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.