VacationSelector
La Concha beach and Monte Urgull, San Sebastian
San SebastianLa Concha beach and Monte Urgull
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 Sebastian by Guérin Nicolas, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

San Sebastian 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 Sebastian for

  • getting around
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • 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 Sebastian 68, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 19 points.
Food & drink. San Sebastian 88, St. Pete Beach 40: San Sebastian leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. San Sebastian 52, St. Pete Beach 18: San Sebastian leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. San Sebastian 44, St. Pete Beach 28: San Sebastian leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Sebastian 72, St. Pete Beach 57: San Sebastian leads by 15 points.
Day trips. San Sebastian 80, St. Pete Beach 58: San Sebastian leads by 22 points.
Good for families. San Sebastian 66, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 6 points.
Getting around. San Sebastian 80, St. Pete Beach 30: San Sebastian leads by 50 points.
Shopping & style. San Sebastian 40, St. Pete Beach 20: San Sebastian leads by 20 points.
Affordability. San Sebastian and St. Pete Beach are level on 32.
Live music & performing arts. San Sebastian 45, St. Pete Beach 20: San Sebastian leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Sebastian 50, St. Pete Beach 42: San Sebastian leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Sebastian and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

San Sebastian
Best match
60match

Wins on getting around and food and drink with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

San Sebastian in July

22 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
92 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
21 °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 SebastianSt. Pete Beach

Where the figures come from

San Sebastian's station stands 252 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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 Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 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 SebastianSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation6 m2 m
Main airportSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 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 SebastianSt. Pete Beach
City population189,8668,879
People per km²3,118173
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Sebastian 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.