VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License.

Clearwater or Essaouira?

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
  • day trips
  • families

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

Choose Essaouira for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Essaouira’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, Essaouira 47: Clearwater leads by 43 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Essaouira 48: Essaouira leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Essaouira 14: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Essaouira 57: Essaouira leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Essaouira 17: Clearwater leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Essaouira 42: Clearwater leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Essaouira 58: Essaouira leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Essaouira 74: Essaouira leads by 39 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Essaouira 28: Clearwater leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Essaouira 66: Essaouira leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Essaouira.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Essaouira
45match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterEssaouira

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.

Essaouira 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.

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). Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterEssaouira
Official language-Arabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1
Emergency number911Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15
Elevation9 m11 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterEssaouira
City population117,29282,962
People per km²1,15416,592
Museums within 10 km42
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Clearwater or Essaouira 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.