VacationSelector
The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, Lyon
LyonThe Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Lyon by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Lyon 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 Lyon for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Lyon’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. Lyon 12, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Lyon 84, St. Pete Beach 40: Lyon leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Lyon 77, St. Pete Beach 18: Lyon leads by 59 points.
Nightlife. Lyon 58, St. Pete Beach 28: Lyon leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lyon 64, St. Pete Beach 57: Lyon leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Lyon 77, St. Pete Beach 58: Lyon leads by 19 points.
Good for families. Lyon 62, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Lyon 77, St. Pete Beach 30: Lyon leads by 47 points.
Shopping & style. Lyon 58, St. Pete Beach 20: Lyon leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Lyon 42, St. Pete Beach 32: Lyon leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lyon 68, St. Pete Beach 20: Lyon leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lyon 40, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lyon and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Lyon
Best match
60match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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.

Lyon in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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
LyonSt. 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. Lyon: 1991-2020 normals, Lyon / Bron (10.6 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

MeasureLyonSt. Pete Beach
Official languageFrench-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation160 m2 m
Main airportLyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS)20 km from centre141 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLyonSt. Pete Beach
City population519,1278,879
People per km²10,838173
Museums within 10 km432
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 Lyon 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.