VacationSelector
The Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower, Shanghai
ShanghaiThe Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Shanghai by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Shanghai 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 Shanghai for

  • shopping
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • 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. Shanghai 10, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Shanghai 88, St. Pete Beach 40: Shanghai leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. Shanghai 72, St. Pete Beach 18: Shanghai leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Shanghai 80, St. Pete Beach 28: Shanghai leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Shanghai 25, St. Pete Beach 57: St. Pete Beach leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Shanghai 90, St. Pete Beach 58: Shanghai leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Shanghai 80, St. Pete Beach 72: Shanghai leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Shanghai 85, St. Pete Beach 30: Shanghai leads by 55 points.
Shopping & style. Shanghai 82, St. Pete Beach 20: Shanghai leads by 62 points.
Affordability. Shanghai 55, St. Pete Beach 32: Shanghai leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Shanghai 66, St. Pete Beach 20: Shanghai leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Shanghai 55, St. Pete Beach 42: Shanghai leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Shanghai and St. Pete Beach.

Your match

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

Shanghai
Best match
66match

Wins on shopping and getting around with your weighting.

St. Pete Beach
42match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Shanghai in July

33 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
151 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 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
ShanghaiSt. 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. Shanghai: 1991-2020 normals, Shanghai / Hongqiao (8.1 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

MeasureShanghaiSt. Pete Beach
Official languagePutonghua-
CurrencyYuan Renminbi (CNY)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsACI220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, ambulance 120, fire 119911
Elevation4 m2 m
Main airportShanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG)33 km from centre207 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year6 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureShanghaiSt. Pete Beach
City population24,870,8958,879
People per km²3,922173
Museums within 10 km452
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Shanghai 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.