VacationSelector
Fort San Pedro in Cebu City, Cebu
CebuFort San Pedro in Cebu City
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Cebu by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cebu 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 Cebu for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • families
  • beaches
  • day trips

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. Cebu 60, Clearwater 90: Clearwater leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Cebu 58, Clearwater 38: Cebu leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Cebu 40, Clearwater 18: Cebu leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Cebu 46, Clearwater 34: Cebu leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cebu 60, Clearwater 55: Cebu leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Cebu 44, Clearwater 58: Clearwater leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Cebu 45, Clearwater 78: Clearwater leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Cebu 26, Clearwater 28: Clearwater leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Cebu 44, Clearwater 27: Cebu leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Cebu 80, Clearwater 35: Cebu leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cebu 25, Clearwater 36: Clearwater leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cebu 50, Clearwater 40: Cebu leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cebu and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Cebu
Best match
48match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Clearwater
45match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cebu in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
205 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
CebuClearwater

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. Cebu: 1991-2020 normals, Mactan (7.1 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

MeasureCebuClearwater
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, Taglish-
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation135 m9 m
Main airportMactan Cebu International Airport (CEB)9 km from centre42 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCebuClearwater
City population965,332117,292
People per km²3,0651,154
Museums within 10 km54
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 Cebu 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.