VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Johannesburg by K, Pexels License.

Clearwater or Johannesburg?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Johannesburg for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Johannesburg’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, Johannesburg 5: Clearwater leads by 85 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Johannesburg 58: Johannesburg leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Johannesburg 56: Johannesburg leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Johannesburg 62: Johannesburg leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater and Johannesburg are level on 55.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Johannesburg 52: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Johannesburg 42: Clearwater leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Johannesburg 18: Clearwater leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Johannesburg 58: Johannesburg leads by 31 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Johannesburg 72: Johannesburg leads by 37 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Johannesburg 55: Johannesburg leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Johannesburg 28: Clearwater leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Johannesburg.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Johannesburg
47match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterJohannesburg

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). Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterJohannesburg
Official language-English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Rand (ZAR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCMN230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+2
Emergency number911112
Elevation9 m1,753 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre83 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterJohannesburg
City population117,2924,803,262
People per km²1,1542,922
Museums within 10 km414
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
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 Johannesburg 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.