VacationSelector
Cocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols, Cocoa Beach
Cocoa BeachCocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Cocoa Beach by Benoît Prieur, CC0; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Cocoa Beach or Petra?

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 Cocoa Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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. Cocoa Beach 80, Petra 5: Cocoa Beach leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Cocoa Beach 32, Petra 22: Cocoa Beach leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cocoa Beach 12, Petra 85: Petra leads by 73 points.
Nightlife. Cocoa Beach 27, Petra 5: Cocoa Beach leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cocoa Beach 62, Petra 78: Petra leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Cocoa Beach 52, Petra 30: Cocoa Beach leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Cocoa Beach 72, Petra 25: Cocoa Beach leads by 47 points.
Getting around. Cocoa Beach 22, Petra 25: Petra leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Cocoa Beach 20, Petra 18: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cocoa Beach 40, Petra 45: Petra leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cocoa Beach 14, Petra 10: Cocoa Beach leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cocoa Beach 30, Petra 28: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cocoa Beach and Petra.

Your match

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

Cocoa Beach
Best match
39match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

Cocoa Beach in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
147 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Cocoa BeachPetra

Where the figures come from

Cocoa Beach 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.

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cocoa Beach: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cocoa / Patrick Air Force Base (11.2 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCocoa BeachPetra
Official language-Arabic
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation0 m850 m
Main airportOrlando International Airport (MCO)68 km from centre170 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCocoa BeachPetra
City population11,354-
People per km²290-
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C11 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cocoa Beach or Petra 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.