VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Clearwater or Phuket?

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

  • live music and the arts
  • day trips
  • families

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

Choose Phuket for

  • wellness
  • nightlife
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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 and Phuket are level on 90.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Phuket 35: Phuket leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Phuket 45: Clearwater leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Phuket 65: Clearwater leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Phuket 22: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Phuket 42: Phuket leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Phuket 20: Clearwater leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 42 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Phuket.

Your match

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

Clearwater
45match

Wins on live music and the arts and day trips with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on wellness and nightlife 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

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterPhuket

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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket 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). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterPhuket
Official language-Thai
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation9 m19 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterPhuket
City population117,29277,610
People per km²1,1546,468
Museums within 10 km42
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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