VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The Metropolitan Cathedral of San Jose, San Jose, Costa Rica
San Jose, Costa RicaThe Metropolitan Cathedral of San Jose

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; San Jose, Costa Rica by Bernard Gagnon, CC0.

Clearwater or San Jose, Costa Rica?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose San Jose, Costa Rica for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose, Costa Rica’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, San Jose, Costa Rica 12: Clearwater leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, San Jose, Costa Rica 42: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, San Jose, Costa Rica 38: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, San Jose, Costa Rica 40: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, San Jose, Costa Rica 78: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, San Jose, Costa Rica 52: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, San Jose, Costa Rica 44: Clearwater leads by 34 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, San Jose, Costa Rica 30: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, San Jose, Costa Rica 36: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, San Jose, Costa Rica 54: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, San Jose, Costa Rica 38: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, San Jose, Costa Rica 28: Clearwater leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and San Jose, Costa Rica.

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.

San Jose, Costa Rica
41match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

San Jose, Costa Rica in July

28 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
173 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterSan Jose, Costa Rica

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.

San Jose, Costa Rica's station stands 241 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

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). San Jose, Costa Rica: 1991-2020 normals, Juan Santamaria (16.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterSan Jose, Costa Rica
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation9 m1,161 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsJuan Santamaría International Airport (SJO)16 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterSan Jose, Costa Rica
City population117,292335,007
People per km²1,1547,511
Museums within 10 km49
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 San Jose, Costa Rica 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.