VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Huatulco 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 Huatulco for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • day trips
  • families
  • live music and the arts

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. Huatulco 86, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 1 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, St. Pete Beach 40: Huatulco leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, St. Pete Beach 18: St. Pete Beach leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, St. Pete Beach 28: St. Pete Beach leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, St. Pete Beach 57: Huatulco leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, St. Pete Beach 30: Huatulco leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco and St. Pete Beach are level on 20.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, St. Pete Beach 32: Huatulco leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, St. Pete Beach 20: St. Pete Beach leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, St. Pete Beach 42: Huatulco leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Huatulco
43match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on day trips and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Huatulco in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
156 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoSt. Pete Beach

Where the figures come from

Huatulco's temperatures are measured 42 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Huatulco's station stands 177 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Huatulco 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. Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 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

MeasureHuatulcoSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation220 m2 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoSt. Pete Beach
City population7,4098,879
People per km²-173
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Huatulco 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). 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.