VacationSelector
Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago
ChicagoCloud Gate in Millennium Park
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Chicago by Jesus Toledo, Pexels License; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Chicago 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 Chicago for

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

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Chicago 50, Clearwater 90: Clearwater leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Chicago 80, Clearwater 38: Chicago leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Chicago 78, Clearwater 18: Chicago leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. Chicago 77, Clearwater 34: Chicago leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chicago 48, Clearwater 55: Clearwater leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Chicago 42, Clearwater 58: Clearwater leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Chicago and Clearwater are level on 78.
Getting around. Chicago 72, Clearwater 28: Chicago leads by 44 points.
Shopping & style. Chicago 70, Clearwater 27: Chicago leads by 43 points.
Affordability. Chicago 33, Clearwater 35: Clearwater leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chicago 82, Clearwater 36: Chicago leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chicago 33, Clearwater 40: Clearwater leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chicago and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Chicago
Best match
62match

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

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches 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.

Chicago in July

29 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 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
ChicagoClearwater

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. Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 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

MeasureChicagoClearwater
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation179 m9 m
Main airportChicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre274 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureChicagoClearwater
City population2,746,388117,292
People per km²4,5291,154
Museums within 10 km444
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chicago 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.