VacationSelector
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Johannesburg by K, Pexels License; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Johannesburg 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 Johannesburg for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

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. Johannesburg 5, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 82 points.
Food & drink. Johannesburg 58, St. Pete Beach 40: Johannesburg leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Johannesburg 56, St. Pete Beach 18: Johannesburg leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Johannesburg 62, St. Pete Beach 28: Johannesburg leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Johannesburg 55, St. Pete Beach 57: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Johannesburg 52, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Johannesburg 42, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Johannesburg 18, St. Pete Beach 30: St. Pete Beach leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Johannesburg 58, St. Pete Beach 20: Johannesburg leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Johannesburg 72, St. Pete Beach 32: Johannesburg leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Johannesburg 55, St. Pete Beach 20: Johannesburg leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Johannesburg 28, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Johannesburg and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Johannesburg
Best match
47match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on beaches 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.

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 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
JohannesburgSt. Pete Beach

Where the figures come from

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. Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 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

MeasureJohannesburgSt. Pete Beach
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language-
CurrencyRand (ZAR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation1,753 m2 m
Main airportO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureJohannesburgSt. Pete Beach
City population4,803,2628,879
People per km²2,922173
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Johannesburg 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.