VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cape Town 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 Cape Town for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights
  • prices

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • beaches
  • 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. Cape Town 58, Clearwater 90: Clearwater leads by 32 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Clearwater 38: Cape Town leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Clearwater 18: Cape Town leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Clearwater 34: Cape Town leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Clearwater 55: Cape Town leads by 43 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Clearwater 58: Cape Town leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Clearwater 78: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, Clearwater 28: Cape Town leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Clearwater 27: Cape Town leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Clearwater 35: Cape Town leads by 37 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Clearwater 36: Cape Town leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Clearwater 40: Cape Town leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Cape Town
Best match
61match

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

Clearwater
45match

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.

Cape Town in July

18 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 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
Cape TownClearwater

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. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 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

MeasureCape TownClearwater
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language-
CurrencyRand (ZAR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation5 m9 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownClearwater
City population3,776,313117,292
People per km²1,5381,154
Museums within 10 km224
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town 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). 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. 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.