VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Clearwater or El Nido?

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

  • day trips
  • families
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose El Nido for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on El Nido’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, El Nido 92: El Nido leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, El Nido 27: Clearwater leads by 11 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, El Nido 4: Clearwater leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, El Nido 30: Clearwater leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, El Nido 87: El Nido leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, El Nido 8: Clearwater leads by 50 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, El Nido 40: Clearwater leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, El Nido 22: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, El Nido 7: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, El Nido 64: El Nido leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, El Nido 7: Clearwater leads by 29 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, El Nido 46: El Nido leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and El Nido.

Your match

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

Clearwater
Best match
45match

Wins on day trips and families with your weighting.

El Nido
36match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and prices 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

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterEl Nido

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.

El Nido has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterEl Nido
Official language-English, Filipino, Taglish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Philippine Peso (PHP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number911911
Elevation9 m35 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterEl Nido
City population117,29251,367
People per km²1,15456
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Clearwater or El Nido 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.