VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Newport Beach 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 Newport Beach for

  • shopping
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport Beach’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. Newport Beach 70, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 17 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, St. Pete Beach 40: Newport Beach leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, St. Pete Beach 18: Newport Beach leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, St. Pete Beach 28: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, St. Pete Beach 57: Newport Beach leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, St. Pete Beach 58: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach 80, St. Pete Beach 72: Newport Beach leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, St. Pete Beach 30: St. Pete Beach leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, St. Pete Beach 20: Newport Beach leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, St. Pete Beach 32: St. Pete Beach leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, St. Pete Beach 20: Newport Beach leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, St. Pete Beach 42: Newport Beach leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on shopping and live music and the arts 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.

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °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
Newport BeachSt. 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. Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 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

MeasureNewport BeachSt. 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
Elevation3 m2 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachSt. Pete Beach
City population85,2398,879
People per km²622173
Museums within 10 km42
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Newport Beach 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.