VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Clearwater or San Jose?

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
  • prices
  • families

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

Choose San Jose for

  • shopping
  • day trips
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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 30: Clearwater leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, San Jose 56: San Jose leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, San Jose 36: San Jose leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, San Jose 33: Clearwater leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, San Jose 72: San Jose leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, San Jose 65: Clearwater leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, San Jose 48: San Jose leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, San Jose 20: Clearwater leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, San Jose 38: San Jose leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, San Jose 30: Clearwater leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and San Jose.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

San Jose
45match

Wins on shopping and day trips 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 in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ClearwaterSan Jose

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.

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: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterSan Jose
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 m25 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterSan Jose
City population117,2921,013,240
People per km²1,1542,167
Museums within 10 km419
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 San Jose 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.