VacationSelector
Palm Springs
The red cable car above Wellington, Wellington
WellingtonThe red cable car above Wellington

Photos: Wellington by lumoplank, CC0.

Palm Springs or Wellington?

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
  • shopping

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

Choose Wellington for

  • getting around
  • beaches
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Wellington’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, Wellington 33: Wellington leads by 26 points.
Food & drink. Palm Springs 40, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Springs 42, Wellington 44: Wellington leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Palm Springs 36, Wellington 45: Wellington leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Springs and Wellington are level on 78.
Day trips. Palm Springs 38, Wellington 40: Wellington leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Palm Springs 40, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Palm Springs 22, Wellington 68: Wellington leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Palm Springs 44, Wellington 42: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Palm Springs 32, Wellington 33: Wellington leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Springs 40, Wellington 56: Wellington leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Springs 80, Wellington 30: Palm Springs leads by 50 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Springs and Wellington.

Your match

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

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and shopping with your weighting.

Wellington
Best match
49match

Wins on getting around 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

Wellington in July

12 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
Palm SpringsWellington

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.

Wellington's sunshine is measured 47 km from the centre, at Paraparaumu Aerodrome.

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). Wellington: 1961-1990 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Wellington Aerodrome Aws (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm SpringsWellington
Official language-English, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation146 m0 m
Main airportPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinationsWellington International Airport (WLG)5 km from centre20 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm SpringsWellington
City population44,575216,200
People per km²181487
Museums within 10 km312
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

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