VacationSelector
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Essaouira or St. Pete Beach?

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 Essaouira for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • day trips
  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Pete Beach’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. Essaouira 47, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Essaouira 44, St. Pete Beach 40: Essaouira leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Essaouira 48, St. Pete Beach 18: Essaouira leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Essaouira 14, St. Pete Beach 28: St. Pete Beach leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Essaouira and St. Pete Beach are level on 57.
Day trips. Essaouira 17, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Essaouira 42, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Essaouira 58, St. Pete Beach 30: Essaouira leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Essaouira 44, St. Pete Beach 20: Essaouira leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Essaouira 74, St. Pete Beach 32: Essaouira leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Essaouira 28, St. Pete Beach 20: Essaouira leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Essaouira 66, St. Pete Beach 42: Essaouira leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Essaouira and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Essaouira
Best match
45match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on day trips and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

St. Pete Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
185 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
EssaouiraSt. Pete Beach

Where the figures come from

Essaouira 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.

St. Pete 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.

St. Pete Beach's sunshine is measured 34 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre). St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEssaouiraSt. Pete Beach
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight-
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCE50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15911
Elevation11 m2 m
Main airportEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureEssaouiraSt. Pete Beach
City population82,9628,879
People per km²16,592173
Museums within 10 km22
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Essaouira or St. Pete Beach 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.