VacationSelector
Wat Pho, Bangkok
BangkokWat Pho
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Bangkok by Lu Zhao, Pexels License; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Bangkok or St. Pete 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 Bangkok for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Pete 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. Bangkok 12, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Bangkok 95, St. Pete Beach 40: Bangkok leads by 55 points.
Culture & sights. Bangkok 80, St. Pete Beach 18: Bangkok leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Bangkok 85, St. Pete Beach 28: Bangkok leads by 57 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bangkok 25, St. Pete Beach 57: St. Pete Beach leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Bangkok 72, St. Pete Beach 58: Bangkok leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Bangkok 50, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Bangkok 50, St. Pete Beach 30: Bangkok leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Bangkok 80, St. Pete Beach 20: Bangkok leads by 60 points.
Affordability. Bangkok 85, St. Pete Beach 32: Bangkok leads by 53 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bangkok 52, St. Pete Beach 20: Bangkok leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bangkok 75, St. Pete Beach 42: Bangkok leads by 33 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bangkok and St. Pete Beach.

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 shopping with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

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

St. Pete Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
185 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
BangkokSt. Pete Beach

Where the figures come from

St. Pete Beach 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.

St. Pete Beach's sunshine is measured 34 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). St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBangkokSt. Pete Beach
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 m2 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)26 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBangkokSt. Pete Beach
City population5,676,6488,879
People per km²3,619173
Museums within 10 km592
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 St. Pete 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. 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.