VacationSelector
The cathedral of Santa Marta, Santa Marta
Santa MartaThe cathedral of Santa Marta
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Santa Marta by Oliver H, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Santa Marta 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 Santa Marta for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • families
  • day trips
  • beaches

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. Santa Marta 70, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 17 points.
Food & drink. Santa Marta 44, St. Pete Beach 40: Santa Marta leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Marta 34, St. Pete Beach 18: Santa Marta leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Santa Marta 50, St. Pete Beach 28: Santa Marta leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Marta 84, St. Pete Beach 57: Santa Marta leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Santa Marta 38, St. Pete Beach 58: St. Pete Beach leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Santa Marta 40, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 32 points.
Getting around. Santa Marta 38, St. Pete Beach 30: Santa Marta leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Marta 27, St. Pete Beach 20: Santa Marta leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Santa Marta 80, St. Pete Beach 32: Santa Marta leads by 48 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Marta 17, St. Pete Beach 20: St. Pete Beach leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Marta 30, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 12 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Santa Marta
Best match
46match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Santa Marta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 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
Santa MartaSt. 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. Santa Marta: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Marta / Simon Bolivar (11.9 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

MeasureSanta MartaSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation8 m2 m
Main airportSimón Bolívar International Airport (SMR)13 km from centre6 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta MartaSt. Pete Beach
City population505,9158,879
People per km²1,723173
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Santa Marta 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). 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.