VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Clearwater or Kyoto?

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 Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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, Kyoto 15: Clearwater leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 47 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 78 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Kyoto 68: Clearwater leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 44 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 45 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Kyoto.

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.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink 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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterKyoto

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.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterKyoto
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation9 m51 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterKyoto
City population117,2921,463,723
People per km²1,1541,768
Museums within 10 km477
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Clearwater or Kyoto 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.