Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.
Playa del Carmen 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 Playa del Carmen for
- nightlife
- getting around
- prices
What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’s own page.
Choose St. Pete Beach for
- culture and sights
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.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and St. Pete Beach.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and getting around with your weighting.
Wins on culture and sights with your weighting.
What matters to you?
When should you go?
Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
Playa del Carmen in July
St. Pete Beach in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
Where the figures come from
Playa del Carmen has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.
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. Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Playa del Carmen | St. Pete Beach |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya | - |
| Currency | Mexican Peso (MXN) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB127 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5 | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 8 m | 2 m |
| Main airport | Cancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre135 non-stop destinations | St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 9 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Playa del Carmen | St. Pete Beach |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 304,942 | 8,879 |
| People per km² | - | 173 |
| Museums within 10 km | 0 | 2 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | 8 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Playa del Carmen or St. Pete Beach somewhere new.