VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
Palm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms, Palm Springs
Palm SpringsPalm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Palm Springs by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Clearwater or Palm Springs?

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
  • day trips

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm Springs’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, Palm Springs 7: Clearwater leads by 83 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Palm Springs 42: Palm Springs leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Palm Springs 36: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Palm Springs 38: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Palm Springs 40: Clearwater leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Palm Springs 22: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Palm Springs 44: Palm Springs leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Palm Springs 32: Clearwater leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 40 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Clearwater
Best match
45match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness 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

Palm Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterPalm Springs

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.

Palm Springs 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). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterPalm Springs
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 m146 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterPalm Springs
City population117,29244,575
People per km²1,154181
Museums within 10 km43
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Palm Springs 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.