VacationSelector
Palm Springs
Ca' d'Zan, the Ringling mansion on Sarasota Bay, Sarasota
SarasotaCa' d'Zan, the Ringling mansion on Sarasota Bay

Photos: Sarasota by Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Sarasota?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Sarasota for

  • beaches
  • families
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Sarasota’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, Sarasota 86: Sarasota leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Sarasota 44: Sarasota leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Sarasota 45: Sarasota leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Sarasota 28: Palm Springs leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Sarasota 55: Palm Springs leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Sarasota 50: Sarasota leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Sarasota 68: Sarasota leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Sarasota 28: Sarasota leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Sarasota 40: Palm Springs leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Sarasota 30: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Sarasota 58: Sarasota leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Sarasota 45: Palm Springs leads by 35 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Sarasota.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Sarasota
Best match
48match

Wins on beaches and families 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

Sarasota in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
195 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsSarasota

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.

Sarasota 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.

Sarasota's sunshine is measured 70 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

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). Sarasota: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sarasota / Ballentine Manor (6.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsSarasota
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation146 m7 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsSarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)7 km from centre70 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsSarasota
City population44,57554,842
People per km²181840
Museums within 10 km33
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

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