VacationSelector
Wat Pho, Bangkok
BangkokWat Pho
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Bangkok by Lu Zhao, Pexels License; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Bangkok or Clearwater?

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 Bangkok for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • shopping

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Clearwater’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. Bangkok 12, Clearwater 90: Clearwater leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Bangkok 95, Clearwater 38: Bangkok leads by 57 points.
Culture & sights. Bangkok 80, Clearwater 18: Bangkok leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Bangkok 85, Clearwater 34: Bangkok leads by 51 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bangkok 25, Clearwater 55: Clearwater leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Bangkok 72, Clearwater 58: Bangkok leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Bangkok 50, Clearwater 78: Clearwater leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Bangkok 50, Clearwater 28: Bangkok leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Bangkok 80, Clearwater 27: Bangkok leads by 53 points.
Affordability. Bangkok 85, Clearwater 35: Bangkok leads by 50 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bangkok 52, Clearwater 36: Bangkok leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bangkok 75, Clearwater 40: Bangkok leads by 35 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bangkok and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Bangkok
Best match
63match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

Clearwater
45match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Bangkok in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
184 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Clearwater in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
188 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
BangkokClearwater

Where the figures come from

Clearwater 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.

Clearwater's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bangkok: 1991-2020 normals, Bangkok (5.7 km from centre). Clearwater: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg / High Point (12.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBangkokClearwater
Official languageThai-
CurrencyBaht (THB)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation2 m9 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)26 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBangkokClearwater
City population5,676,648117,292
People per km²3,6191,154
Museums within 10 km594
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bangkok or Clearwater 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.