VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

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

Mazatlan 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 Mazatlan for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • culture and sights

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • day trips
  • families
  • beaches

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. Mazatlan 80, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, St. Pete Beach 40: Mazatlan leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, St. Pete Beach 18: Mazatlan leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, St. Pete Beach 28: Mazatlan leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, St. Pete Beach 57: Mazatlan leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, St. Pete Beach 30: Mazatlan leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, St. Pete Beach 20: Mazatlan leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, St. Pete Beach 32: Mazatlan leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, St. Pete Beach 20: Mazatlan leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on prices and nightlife 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.

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °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
MazatlanSt. 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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (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

MeasureMazatlanSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation139 m2 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanSt. Pete Beach
City population441,9758,879
People per km²-173
Museums within 10 km32
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 Mazatlan 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.