VacationSelector
The terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago
SantiagoThe terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Santiago by Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Santiago 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 Santiago for

  • getting around
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

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. Santiago 12, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Santiago 60, St. Pete Beach 40: Santiago leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Santiago 52, St. Pete Beach 18: Santiago leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Santiago 60, St. Pete Beach 28: Santiago leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santiago 83, St. Pete Beach 57: Santiago leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Santiago 70, St. Pete Beach 58: Santiago leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Santiago 57, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Santiago 68, St. Pete Beach 30: Santiago leads by 38 points.
Shopping & style. Santiago 52, St. Pete Beach 20: Santiago leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Santiago 58, St. Pete Beach 32: Santiago leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santiago 55, St. Pete Beach 20: Santiago leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santiago 37, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santiago and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Santiago
Best match
55match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts 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.

Santiago in July

14 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
52 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
10 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
SantiagoSt. 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. Santiago: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago Q. Normal (3.1 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

MeasureSantiagoSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyChilean Peso (CLP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCL220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4, UTC-3 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132911
Elevation575 m2 m
Main airportComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)14 km from centre67 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSantiagoSt. Pete Beach
City population6,257,5168,879
People per km²7,468173
Museums within 10 km542
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santiago 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.