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 top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

St. Pete Beach or Vail?

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
  • prices
  • families

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

Choose Vail for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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, Vail 5: St. Pete Beach leads by 82 points.
Food & drink. St. Pete Beach 40, Vail 35: St. Pete Beach leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. St. Pete Beach 18, Vail 10: St. Pete Beach leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. St. Pete Beach 28, Vail 30: Vail leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. St. Pete Beach 57, Vail 92: Vail leads by 35 points.
Day trips. St. Pete Beach 58, Vail 45: St. Pete Beach leads by 13 points.
Good for families. St. Pete Beach 72, Vail 55: St. Pete Beach leads by 17 points.
Getting around. St. Pete Beach 30, Vail 62: Vail leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. St. Pete Beach 20, Vail 35: Vail leads by 15 points.
Affordability. St. Pete Beach 32, Vail 5: St. Pete Beach leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. St. Pete Beach 20, Vail 42: Vail leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. St. Pete Beach 42, Vail 48: Vail leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: St. Pete Beach and Vail.

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 prices with your weighting.

Vail
39match

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

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
St. Pete BeachVail

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.

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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.

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). Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSt. Pete BeachVail
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m2,445 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureSt. Pete BeachVail
City population8,8794,835
People per km²173400
Museums within 10 km21
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow St. Pete Beach or Vail 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.