VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine, Cologne
CologneThe cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Cologne by Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Clearwater or Cologne?

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 Clearwater for

  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose Cologne for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Cologne’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. Clearwater 90, Cologne 14: Clearwater leads by 76 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Cologne 52: Cologne leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Cologne 67: Cologne leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Cologne 66: Cologne leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Cologne 56: Cologne leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Cologne 80: Cologne leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Cologne 70: Clearwater leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Cologne 74: Cologne leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Cologne 57: Cologne leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Cologne 46: Cologne leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Cologne 68: Cologne leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Cologne 50: Cologne leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Cologne.

Your match

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

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Cologne
Best match
58match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

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

Cologne in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
81 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterCologne

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. Clearwater: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg / High Point (12.7 km from centre). Cologne: 1991-2020 normals, Köln-Stammheim (5.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterCologne
Official language-German
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation9 m59 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre115 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterCologne
City population117,2921,025,523
People per km²1,1542,532
Museums within 10 km440
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Clearwater or Cologne 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.