VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cancun 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 Cancun for

  • nightlife
  • wellness
  • shopping

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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. Cancun 98, Clearwater 90: Cancun leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Clearwater 38: Cancun leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Clearwater 18: Clearwater leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Clearwater 34: Cancun leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Clearwater 55: Cancun leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Clearwater 58: Cancun leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Cancun and Clearwater are level on 78.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Clearwater 28: Clearwater leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Clearwater 27: Cancun leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Clearwater 35: Cancun leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Clearwater 36: Clearwater leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Clearwater 40: Cancun leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Cancun
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife and wellness with your weighting.

Clearwater
45match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cancun in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CancunClearwater

Where the figures come from

Cancun has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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. Cancun: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Clearwater: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg / High Point (12.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunClearwater
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation5 m9 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunClearwater
City population888,797117,292
People per km²-1,154
Museums within 10 km14
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 Cancun or Clearwater somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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). 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.