VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Kyoto 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 Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • food and drink

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • 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. Kyoto 15, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 72 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, St. Pete Beach 40: Kyoto leads by 45 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, St. Pete Beach 18: Kyoto leads by 78 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, St. Pete Beach 28: Kyoto leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, St. Pete Beach 57: Kyoto leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, St. Pete Beach 58: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, St. Pete Beach 30: Kyoto leads by 42 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, St. Pete Beach 20: Kyoto leads by 52 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, St. Pete Beach 32: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, St. Pete Beach 20: Kyoto leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, St. Pete Beach 42: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping 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.

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °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
KyotoSt. Pete Beach

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 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

MeasureKyotoSt. Pete Beach
Official languageJapanese-
CurrencyYen (JPY)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m2 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoSt. Pete Beach
City population1,463,7238,879
People per km²1,768173
Museums within 10 km772
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kyoto or St. Pete Beach somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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.