VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cartagena 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 Cartagena for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • getting around

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • families
  • day trips
  • beaches

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. Cartagena 70, Clearwater 90: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Clearwater 38: Cartagena leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Clearwater 18: Cartagena leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Clearwater 34: Cartagena leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Clearwater 55: Clearwater leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Clearwater 58: Clearwater leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Clearwater 78: Clearwater leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Clearwater 28: Cartagena leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Clearwater 27: Cartagena leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Clearwater 35: Cartagena leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Clearwater 36: Cartagena leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena and Clearwater are level on 40.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

Clearwater
45match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cartagena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
124 mmrain in the month
7 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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaClearwater

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. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 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

MeasureCartagenaClearwater
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation2 m9 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaClearwater
City population914,552117,292
People per km²1,5991,154
Museums within 10 km24
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Cartagena 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.