VacationSelector
Palm Springs
The old Hokkaido Government Office and its flower beds, Sapporo
SapporoThe old Hokkaido Government Office and its flower beds

Photos: Sapporo by Feri88, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Sapporo?

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

  • culture and sights

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

Choose Sapporo for

  • getting around
  • food and drink
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Sapporo’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, Sapporo 28: Sapporo leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Sapporo 40: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Sapporo 62: Sapporo leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Sapporo 86: Sapporo leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Sapporo 64: Sapporo leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Sapporo 72: Sapporo leads by 32 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 58 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Sapporo 58: Sapporo leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Sapporo 60: Sapporo leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Sapporo 44: Sapporo leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs and Sapporo are level on 80.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Sapporo.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on culture and sights with your weighting.

Sapporo
Best match
63match

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
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Sapporo in July

25 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsSapporo

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). Sapporo: 1991-2020 normals, Sapporo (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsSapporo
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation146 m5 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsNew Chitose Airport (CTS)42 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsSapporo
City population44,5751,959,313
People per km²1811,747
Museums within 10 km333
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C-1 month

Where else could you go?

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