VacationSelector
The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
San FranciscoThe Golden Gate Bridge
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: San Francisco by Elijah Cobb, Pexels License; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

San Francisco 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 San Francisco for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • families

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. San Francisco 25, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 62 points.
Food & drink. San Francisco 82, St. Pete Beach 40: San Francisco leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. San Francisco 68, St. Pete Beach 18: San Francisco leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. San Francisco 58, St. Pete Beach 28: San Francisco leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Francisco 80, St. Pete Beach 57: San Francisco leads by 23 points.
Day trips. San Francisco 72, St. Pete Beach 58: San Francisco leads by 14 points.
Good for families. San Francisco 66, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 6 points.
Getting around. San Francisco 70, St. Pete Beach 30: San Francisco leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. San Francisco 58, St. Pete Beach 20: San Francisco leads by 38 points.
Affordability. San Francisco 14, St. Pete Beach 32: St. Pete Beach leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Francisco 76, St. Pete Beach 20: San Francisco leads by 56 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Francisco 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: San Francisco and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

San Francisco
Best match
59match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights 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.

San Francisco in July

22 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
13 °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
San FranciscoSt. 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. San Francisco: 1981-2010 normals, Alameda Naval Air Station (9.1 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

MeasureSan FranciscoSt. 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
Elevation16 m2 m
Main airportSan Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan FranciscoSt. Pete Beach
City population873,9658,879
People per km²1,455173
Museums within 10 km512
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 San Francisco 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.