VacationSelector

Atlanta or Tampa?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Atlanta
40
match

Wins on sights concentration and nightlife with your weighting.

Tampa
✓ Best match
44
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Atlanta if you want a city trip: more notable places within walking distance of the centre, a wider choice of restaurants near it, and more bars and clubs to work through.

Choose Tampa if the water is the point: 10 beaches nearby where Atlanta has none, warm sea for eight months of the year, and five theme parks within reach for a family holiday.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

AtlantaTampa
Beaches & swimming. Tampa leads by 75 points.75
AtlantaTampa
Score075
Swim season months08
Beaches 10 km010
Coast distance373 km1 km
Water distance—1 km
Places to eat. Atlanta leads by 5 points.5
AtlantaTampa
Score5954
Restaurants within 2 km of centre739359
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2331
Museums & heritage. Atlanta leads by 8 points.8
AtlantaTampa
Score3527
Museums within 10 km4113
Museums within 2 km of centre1610
Share of museums within 2 km %3977
Unesco sites within 50 km00
Nightlife. Atlanta leads by 10 points.10
AtlantaTampa
Score4939
Drinking venues within 4 km531324
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre284227
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %5370
Nightclubs within 4 km4626
Nature & day trips. Atlanta leads by 1 points.1
AtlantaTampa
Score3130
Protected land share 50 km %16
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %10072
Park area within 2 km113 hectares39 hectares
Good for families. Atlanta leads by 2 points.2
AtlantaTampa
Score3230
Tourist attractions within 2 km23
Park area within 2 km113 hectares39 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km15
Sights concentration. Atlanta leads by 19 points.19
AtlantaTampa
Score4021
Notable places within 2 km3913
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Atlanta and Tampa are level on 43.
AtlantaTampa
Score4343
Price level global100100
Daily budget——
Year-round weather. Tampa leads by 8 points.8
AtlantaTampa
Score6775
Monthly daytime high12 °C to 32 °C21.5 °C to 32.6 °C
Monthly rainfall80 mm to 121 mm36 mm to 228 mm
Dry months01
0255075100

Where they differ

Atlanta has roughly three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, so a day on foot goes further. It also has about twice as many bars and clubs, though only around half of them sit near the centre.

Tampa answers with the coast: 10 beaches nearby where Atlanta has none, and eight months of sea at 21°C or warmer, reaching 30°C in August. Its smaller nightlife is mostly walkable from the centre.

Where they are alike

Neither is a base for getting out of the city. Around Tampa 6% of the land is protected and around Atlanta 1%, and neither turns that into much of a day-trip programme; Atlanta holds more park space near the centre.

They land close on families and eating out too, by different routes: Tampa has more attractions near the centre and 5 theme parks against Atlanta's 1, while Atlanta has more restaurants and Tampa a wider range of kitchens.

Which traveller are you?

Travelling with children: Tampa. Five theme parks within reach against Atlanta's one, and more tourist attractions near the centre, though Atlanta holds more park space if open green space matters more than rides.

A city break built on eating and going out: Atlanta. A larger choice of restaurants, bars and clubs near the centre, about three times as many museums, and enough notable places within walking distance to fill a weekend on foot.

Escaping winter: Tampa. Daytime highs hold at 22°C in January where Atlanta sits at 12°C, and its winter months are among the driest of its year.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value figure here is a national price level, identical for both cities by construction, and this dataset carries no daily budget for either. The comparison on cost therefore tells you nothing: treat it as absent rather than as a tie, and price a trip yourself.

The sunshine figure is missing for Atlanta rather than low, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured and its monthly ranking rests on temperature and rain alone. Tampa's beach advantage also peaks when conditions are hardest: the sea is warmest from June to August, exactly when 187-228mm a month falls and highs reach 33°C.

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Atlanta
12
14
19
23
27
30
32
32
29
23
18
13
Tampa
22
23
25
28
31
32
32
33
32
29
26
23
Sea temperature, °C
Atlanta
No coastline within reach
Tampa
18
18
20
23
26
28
30
30
29
27
23
20
Rainfall, mm
Atlanta
116
116
119
99
90
117
121
109
97
80
102
116
Tampa
66
66
64
64
67
187
197
228
156
60
36
65
Daylight, hours per day
Atlanta
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
11
10
10
Tampa
11
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Atlanta
No sunshine record
Tampa
7
7
9
10
11
10
9
10
8
8
7
7

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Atlanta: 1991-2020 normals, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (29.2 km from centre). Tampa: 1991-2020 normals, Tampa International Airport (7.6 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Atlanta is at its best in April and May and again in September and October, when highs sit at 23-29°C rather than the peak of midsummer. Rain is steady all year at 80-121mm a month, so there is no dry season to aim for.

Tampa is the better pick from November to April, with highs of 22-28°C and the year's driest stretch at 36-66mm a month. Midsummer brings 156-228mm and the heaviest heat. For swimming, the sea is warm from late spring into autumn.

Getting there

Flying fromAtlantaTampa
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
2 h 5 m
€152-200
ATL · 14 km
2 h 35 m
€178-237
1 stop
TPA · 8 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
1 h 50 m
€161-221
ATL · 14 km
2 h 35 m
€176-204
1 stop
TPA · 8 km
WashingtonIAD, DCA
1 h 40 m
€84-125
ATL · 14 km
2 h 10 m
no fares
TPA · 8 km
HoustonIAH, HOU
2 h 0 m
no fares
ATL · 14 km
2 h 10 m
no fares
TPA · 8 km
PhiladelphiaPHL, TTN
1 h 55 m
no fares
ATL · 14 km
2 h 25 m
€95-125
1 stop
TPA · 8 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
4 h 20 m
€165-240
1 stop
ATL · 14 km
4 h 45 m
no fares
TPA · 8 km
DallasDFW, DAL, AFW
2 h 5 m
€69-120
ATL · 14 km
2 h 25 m
€163-176
1 stop
TPA · 8 km
Punta CanaPUJ
3 h 25 m
no fares
ATL · 14 km
2 h 45 m
no fares
TPA · 8 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
8 h 35 m
no fares
ATL · 14 km
9 h 0 m
no fares
TPA · 8 km
TokyoHND, NRT
13 h 40 m
no fares
ATL · 14 km
14 h 25 m
no fares
MCO · 125 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureAtlantaTampa
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation225 m30 m
Main airportHartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)14 km from centre238 non-stop destinationsTampa International Airport (TPA)8 km from centre99 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAtlantaTampa
City population498,715384,959
People per km²1,433848
Museums within 10 km276
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Distinct cuisines in the centre5647
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 Atlanta or Tampa somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.