VacationSelector
A palm-lined Hollywood street with the Hollywood Sign behind, Los Angeles
Los AngelesA palm-lined Hollywood street with the Hollywood Sign behind
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Los Angeles by BenSherman, Public domain; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles for

  • live music and the arts
  • shopping
  • culture and sights

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • getting around

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. Los Angeles 60, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Los Angeles 84, St. Pete Beach 40: Los Angeles leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Los Angeles 66, St. Pete Beach 18: Los Angeles leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. Los Angeles 67, St. Pete Beach 28: Los Angeles leads by 39 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Angeles 80, St. Pete Beach 57: Los Angeles leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Los Angeles 60, St. Pete Beach 58: Los Angeles leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Los Angeles 84, St. Pete Beach 72: Los Angeles leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Los Angeles 25, St. Pete Beach 30: St. Pete Beach leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Los Angeles 80, St. Pete Beach 20: Los Angeles leads by 60 points.
Affordability. Los Angeles 24, St. Pete Beach 32: St. Pete Beach leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Angeles 83, St. Pete Beach 20: Los Angeles leads by 63 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Angeles 60, St. Pete Beach 42: Los Angeles leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Angeles and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

Wins on live music and the arts and shopping with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
1 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
Los AngelesSt. 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. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 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

MeasureLos AngelesSt. Pete Beach
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation106 m2 m
Main airportLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos AngelesSt. Pete Beach
City population3,898,7478,879
People per km²2,994173
Museums within 10 km392
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 Los Angeles 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.