VacationSelector
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach
The Arctic Cathedral, Tromso
TromsoThe Arctic Cathedral

Photos: St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License; Tromso by Moyan Brenn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

St. Pete Beach or Tromso?

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 St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Pete Beach’s own page.

Choose Tromso for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Tromso’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. St. Pete Beach 87, Tromso 8: St. Pete Beach leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. St. Pete Beach 40, Tromso 36: St. Pete Beach leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. St. Pete Beach 18, Tromso 27: Tromso leads by 9 points.
Nightlife. St. Pete Beach 28, Tromso 38: Tromso leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. St. Pete Beach 57, Tromso 92: Tromso leads by 35 points.
Day trips. St. Pete Beach 58, Tromso 14: St. Pete Beach leads by 44 points.
Good for families. St. Pete Beach 72, Tromso 45: St. Pete Beach leads by 27 points.
Getting around. St. Pete Beach 30, Tromso 60: Tromso leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. St. Pete Beach 20, Tromso 15: St. Pete Beach leads by 5 points.
Affordability. St. Pete Beach 32, Tromso 11: St. Pete Beach leads by 21 points.
Live music & performing arts. St. Pete Beach 20, Tromso 32: Tromso leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. St. Pete Beach 42, Tromso 38: St. Pete Beach leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: St. Pete Beach and Tromso.

Your match

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

St. Pete Beach
Best match
42match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Tromso
35match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Tromso in July

16 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
73 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
10 °Csea
24 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
St. Pete BeachTromso

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. St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre). Tromso: 1991-2020 normals, Tromso (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSt. Pete BeachTromso
Official language-Norwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Norwegian Krone (NOK)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110
Elevation2 m20 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsTromsø Airport (TOS)4 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSt. Pete BeachTromso
City population8,87979,943
People per km²17332
Museums within 10 km28
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow St. Pete Beach or Tromso 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.