Orlando or Tampa?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on good for families and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Orlando if the trip is built around children: 20 theme parks within reach against Tampa's 5, plus more park space and more protected land around the city for days out.
Choose Tampa if you want to swim: beaches within easy reach, a sea warm enough for much of the year, more museums near the centre and a wider choice of kitchens.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Tampa leads by 75 points.75
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 75 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 8 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 10 |
| Coast distance | 68 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Tampa leads by 6 points.6
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 54 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 365 | 359 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 21 | 31 |
Museums & heritage. Tampa leads by 19 points.19
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 8 | 27 |
| Museums within 10 km | 11 | 13 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 2 | 10 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 18 | 77 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
Nightlife. Orlando leads by 2 points.2
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 39 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 344 | 324 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 216 | 227 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 63 | 70 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 39 | 26 |
Nature & day trips. Orlando leads by 14 points.14
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 30 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 15 | 6 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 72 |
| Park area within 2 km | 52 hectares | 39 hectares |
Good for families. Orlando leads by 59 points.59
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 89 | 30 |
| Theme park ground ha 30 km | 8,853 | — |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 20 | 5 |
| Zoo aquarium 15 km | 2 | — |
| Park area within 2 km | 52 hectares | 39 hectares |
| Scoring variant | familyScoreThemeGroundLed | — |
| Declared | 2026-08-25 | — |
| Register | seed/editorial-overrides.json | — |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | — | 3 |
Sights concentration. Tampa leads by 5 points.5
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 16 | 21 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 10 | 13 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Orlando and Tampa are level on 43.
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Tampa leads by 1 points.1
| Orlando | Tampa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 75 |
| Monthly daytime high | 22.1 °C to 33.3 °C | 21.5 °C to 32.6 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 46 mm to 203 mm | 36 mm to 228 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Orlando is built for family travel: 20 theme parks within reach against Tampa's 5, and somewhat more park space near the centre. It also has the stronger surroundings for days out, with 15% of the land around it protected against 6% around Tampa.
Tampa answers with water: 10 beaches nearby against Orlando's 1, and 8 months of sea at 21°C or more where Orlando has none. It also holds somewhat more museums, clustered tightly around the centre, where Orlando has little on that front.
Where they are alike
Both run daytime highs of about 22-33°C across the year, with January the coolest month in each, and both take the same heavy summer rain.
They also match on evenings and eating: a similar number of places to drink in each, most of them near the centre, and a similar number of restaurants, though Tampa's kitchens are more varied. Neither concentrates many notable sights within walking distance of the centre.
Which traveller are you?
Parents travelling with children should take Orlando: 20 theme parks within reach against Tampa's 5, more park space near the centre and protected land nearby for a day away from the queues.
Anyone whose holiday means swimming should take Tampa: 10 beaches close by where Orlando has essentially one, and a sea that reaches 30°C at its warmest and stays swimmable for most of the year.
A short break spent looking at museums and eating out points to Tampa, with its museums close together near the centre and a wider range of kitchens; if nightclubs matter more, Orlando has about twice as many.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figures here are a national price level, the same for both cities by construction, so they say nothing about which trip costs more. No daily budget figure exists for either Orlando or Tampa, so no cost comparison between them is possible at all; plan spending from your own quotes.
The sunshine figure is missing for Orlando, not low, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured and the monthly ratings there rest on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Tampa's warmest sea, up to 30°C, arrives in the months carrying 187-228mm of rain and 33°C afternoons.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Orlando: 1991-2020 normals, Orlando Airport (14.2 km from centre). Tampa: 1991-2020 normals, Tampa International Airport (7.6 km from centre).
Orlando is the better pick from November to April, when highs run 22-29°C and rain stays light, down to 46mm at the start of that window. June to August brings 33°C with 189-203mm a month.
Tampa peaks a little later, in spring, at 25-28°C with rain near 64mm, and its driest stretch comes in autumn at 36mm. It also holds up better through the summer, when the sea reaches 28-30°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Orlando | Tampa |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 2 h 25 m €158-197 MCO · 14 km | 2 h 35 m €178-237 1 stop TPA · 8 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 2 h 35 m €157-165 MCO · 14 km | 2 h 35 m €176-204 1 stop TPA · 8 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 2 h 40 m no fares MCO · 14 km | 2 h 45 m no fares TPA · 8 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 2 h 5 m no fares MCO · 14 km | 2 h 10 m no fares TPA · 8 km |
| PhiladelphiaPHL, TTN | 2 h 20 m €126-198 MCO · 14 km | 2 h 25 m €95-125 1 stop TPA · 8 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 4 h 50 m no fares MCO · 14 km | 4 h 45 m no fares TPA · 8 km |
| Punta CanaPUJ | 2 h 40 m no fares MCO · 14 km | 2 h 45 m no fares TPA · 8 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 8 h 50 m €483-548 1 stop MCO · 14 km | 9 h 0 m no fares TPA · 8 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 14 h 25 m no fares MCO · 14 km | 14 h 25 m no fares MCO · 125 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 15 h 20 m no fares MCO · 14 km | 15 h 20 m no fares MCO · 125 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Orlando | Tampa |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 34 m | 30 m |
| Main airport | Orlando International Airport (MCO)14 km from centre169 non-stop destinations | Tampa International Airport (TPA)8 km from centre99 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Orlando | Tampa |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 334,854 | 384,959 |
| People per km² | 1,086 | 848 |
| Museums within 10 km | 11 | 6 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 30 | 47 |
| 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 Orlando or Tampa somewhere new.