VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
Florence and the Arno, Florence
FlorenceFlorence and the Arno

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Florence by Wolfgang Weiser, Pexels License.

Charleston or Florence?

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 Charleston for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Florence for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Florence’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. Charleston 72, Florence 14: Charleston leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Florence 74: Florence leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Florence 94: Florence leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Florence 42: Charleston leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Florence 58: Florence leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Florence 98: Florence leads by 36 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, Florence 45: Charleston leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Florence 78: Florence leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Florence 72: Florence leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Florence 35: Florence leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Florence 58: Florence leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Florence 42: Florence leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Florence.

Your match

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

Charleston
53match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Florence
Best match
59match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Florence in July

32 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
37 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonFlorence

Where the figures come from

Florence 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.

Florence's sunshine is measured 71 km from the centre, at Pisa / S. Giusto.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonFlorence
Official language-Italian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation6 m50 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonFlorence
City population150,227360,930
People per km²5323,528
Museums within 10 km19141
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston or Florence 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.