VacationSelector
Palm Springs
The terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago
SantiagoThe terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía

Photos: Santiago by Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Santiago?

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

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

Choose Santiago for

  • getting around
  • day trips
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Santiago’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, Santiago 12: Santiago leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Santiago 60: Santiago leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Santiago 52: Santiago leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Santiago 60: Santiago leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Santiago 83: Santiago leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Santiago 70: Santiago leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Santiago 57: Santiago leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Santiago 68: Santiago leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Santiago 52: Santiago leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Santiago 58: Santiago leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Santiago 55: Santiago leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Santiago 37: Palm Springs leads by 43 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Santiago.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness with your weighting.

Santiago
Best match
55match

Wins on getting around and day trips 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

Santiago in July

14 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
52 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsSantiago

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). Santiago: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago Q. Normal (3.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsSantiago
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation146 m575 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)14 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsSantiago
City population44,5756,257,516
People per km²1817,468
Museums within 10 km354
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 Santiago 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.