VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
Palms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue, West Palm Beach
West Palm BeachPalms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; West Palm Beach by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Santa Fe or West Palm Beach?

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 Santa Fe for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.

Choose West Palm Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on West Palm Beach’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. Santa Fe 5, West Palm Beach 80: West Palm Beach leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, West Palm Beach 52: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, West Palm Beach 42: Santa Fe leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, West Palm Beach 36: West Palm Beach leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, West Palm Beach 58: Santa Fe leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, West Palm Beach 55: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, West Palm Beach 66: West Palm Beach leads by 21 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, West Palm Beach 38: Santa Fe leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, West Palm Beach 64: West Palm Beach leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, West Palm Beach 23: Santa Fe leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, West Palm Beach 47: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, West Palm Beach 44: Santa Fe leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and West Palm Beach.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

West Palm Beach
50match

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.

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

West Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Santa FeWest Palm Beach

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre). West Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (5.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeWest Palm Beach
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2,134 m6 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeWest Palm Beach
City population87,505117,415
People per km²645786
Museums within 10 km104
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Fe or West Palm Beach 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.