VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Clearwater or Newport Beach?

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
  • prices
  • getting around

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

Choose Newport Beach for

  • shopping
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport Beach’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, Newport Beach 70: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Newport Beach 50: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Newport Beach 20: Newport Beach leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Newport Beach 33: Clearwater leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Newport Beach 66: Newport Beach leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Newport Beach 20: Clearwater leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 35 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Newport Beach 15: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Newport Beach 46: Newport Beach leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Newport Beach 44: Newport Beach leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Newport Beach.

Your match

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

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on shopping 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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 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
ClearwaterNewport Beach

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). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterNewport Beach
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation9 m3 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterNewport Beach
City population117,29285,239
People per km²1,154622
Museums within 10 km44
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Newport Beach 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.