VacationSelector
Painted colonial houses in the Pelourinho, Salvador
SalvadorPainted colonial houses in the Pelourinho
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Salvador by Paul R. Burley, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Salvador 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 Salvador for

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

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • families
  • wellness
  • 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. Salvador 84, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 3 points.
Food & drink. Salvador 66, St. Pete Beach 40: Salvador leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Salvador 74, St. Pete Beach 18: Salvador leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Salvador 70, St. Pete Beach 28: Salvador leads by 42 points.
Nature & outdoors. Salvador 52, St. Pete Beach 57: St. Pete Beach leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Salvador 56, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Salvador 42, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Salvador 42, St. Pete Beach 30: Salvador leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Salvador 42, St. Pete Beach 20: Salvador leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Salvador 70, St. Pete Beach 32: Salvador leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Salvador 63, St. Pete Beach 20: Salvador leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Salvador 32, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 10 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Salvador and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Salvador
Best match
58match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on families and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Salvador in July

27 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
201 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
11 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
SalvadorSt. 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. Salvador: 1991-2020 normals, Salvador (4.5 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

MeasureSalvadorSt. Pete Beach
Official languagePortuguese-
CurrencyBrazilian Real (BRL)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCN60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 190, ambulance 192, fire 193911
Elevation8 m2 m
Main airportDeputado Luiz Eduardo Magalhães International Airport (SSA)20 km from centre31 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSalvadorSt. Pete Beach
City population2,417,6788,879
People per km²3,489173
Museums within 10 km492
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Salvador 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.