VacationSelector
Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, New York
New YorkBrooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: New York by Jakub Hałun, CC BY 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

New York 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 New York for

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

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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. New York 50, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 37 points.
Food & drink. New York 92, St. Pete Beach 40: New York leads by 52 points.
Culture & sights. New York 89, St. Pete Beach 18: New York leads by 71 points.
Nightlife. New York 97, St. Pete Beach 28: New York leads by 69 points.
Nature & outdoors. New York 55, St. Pete Beach 57: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Day trips. New York 68, St. Pete Beach 58: New York leads by 10 points.
Good for families. New York 70, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Getting around. New York 82, St. Pete Beach 30: New York leads by 52 points.
Shopping & style. New York 97, St. Pete Beach 20: New York leads by 77 points.
Affordability. New York 12, St. Pete Beach 32: St. Pete Beach leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. New York 99, St. Pete Beach 20: New York leads by 79 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New York and St. Pete Beach are level on 42.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New York and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

New York
Best match
71match

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.

New York in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
107 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
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
New YorkSt. 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. New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 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

MeasureNew YorkSt. Pete Beach
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation25 m2 m
Main airportJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre189 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew YorkSt. Pete Beach
City population8,804,1908,879
People per km²7,256173
Museums within 10 km1572
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New York 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.