VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Clearwater or Rotorua?

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
  • nightlife
  • day trips

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Clearwater leads by 57 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Rotorua 33: Clearwater leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Rotorua 38: Rotorua leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Rotorua 14: Clearwater leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Rotorua 45: Clearwater leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Rotorua 68: Clearwater leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Rotorua 30: Rotorua leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Rotorua 22: Clearwater leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Rotorua 36: Rotorua leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Rotorua 30: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 46 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterRotorua

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.

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

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterRotorua
Official language-English, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation9 m280 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterRotorua
City population117,29258,500
People per km²1,15422
Museums within 10 km41
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 Rotorua 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.