VacationSelector
Palm Springs
Cliff-top hotels above the harbour, Sorrento
SorrentoCliff-top hotels above the harbour

Photos: Sorrento by Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Sorrento?

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
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Sorrento for

  • day trips
  • beaches
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Sorrento’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, Sorrento 60: Sorrento leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Sorrento 60: Sorrento leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Sorrento 32: Palm Springs leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Sorrento 28: Palm Springs leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Sorrento 80: Sorrento leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Sorrento 95: Sorrento leads by 57 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Sorrento 42: Sorrento leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Sorrento 58: Sorrento leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Sorrento 38: Palm Springs leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs and Sorrento are level on 32.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Sorrento 20: Palm Springs leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Sorrento 48: Palm Springs leads by 32 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Sorrento.

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.

Sorrento
Best match
49match

Wins on day trips and beaches 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

Sorrento in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
21 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsSorrento

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.

Sorrento 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.

Sorrento's sunshine is measured 54 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

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). Sorrento: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Capri (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsSorrento
Official language-Italian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation146 m50 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)30 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsSorrento
City population44,57515,407
People per km²1811,541
Museums within 10 km36
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palm Springs or Sorrento 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.