VacationSelector
Palm Springs
Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo
TokyoShibuya Crossing

Photos: Tokyo by Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Palm Springs or Tokyo?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose Tokyo for

  • getting around
  • food and drink
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Tokyo’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, Tokyo 40: Tokyo leads by 33 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 58 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Tokyo 84: Tokyo leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 50 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs 78, Tokyo 68: Palm Springs leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Tokyo 85: Tokyo leads by 47 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Tokyo 95: Tokyo leads by 55 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 76 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Tokyo 99: Tokyo leads by 55 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Tokyo 48: Tokyo leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Tokyo 78: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Tokyo.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

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

Tokyo
Best match
80match

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

Tokyo in July

30 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
157 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsTokyo

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). Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsTokyo
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 m6 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsTokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsTokyo
City population44,57514,264,798
People per km²1816,501
Museums within 10 km3192
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C-4 months

Where else could you go?

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