VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Clearwater or Playa del Carmen?

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
  • culture and sights
  • beaches

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • nightlife
  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’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, Playa del Carmen 88: Clearwater leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Playa del Carmen 12: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Clearwater and Playa del Carmen are level on 78.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Playa del Carmen 55: Playa del Carmen leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Playa del Carmen 38: Playa del Carmen leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Playa del Carmen 22: Clearwater leads by 14 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Playa del Carmen.

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 culture and sights with your weighting.

Playa del Carmen
Best match
55match

Wins on nightlife and getting around 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

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterPlaya del Carmen

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.

Playa del Carmen has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterPlaya del Carmen
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation9 m8 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre135 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterPlaya del Carmen
City population117,292304,942
People per km²1,154-
Museums within 10 km40
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 Playa del Carmen 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.