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 City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia
ValenciaThe City of Arts and Sciences

Photos: St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License; Valencia by Francesco Ungaro, Pexels License.

St. Pete Beach or Valencia?

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

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

Choose Valencia for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Valencia’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, Valencia 78: St. Pete Beach leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. St. Pete Beach 40, Valencia 74: Valencia leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. St. Pete Beach 18, Valencia 68: Valencia leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. St. Pete Beach 28, Valencia 66: Valencia leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. St. Pete Beach 57, Valencia 60: Valencia leads by 3 points.
Day trips. St. Pete Beach 58, Valencia 70: Valencia leads by 12 points.
Good for families. St. Pete Beach 72, Valencia 75: Valencia leads by 3 points.
Getting around. St. Pete Beach 30, Valencia 76: Valencia leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. St. Pete Beach 20, Valencia 57: Valencia leads by 37 points.
Affordability. St. Pete Beach 32, Valencia 57: Valencia leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. St. Pete Beach 20, Valencia 55: Valencia leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. St. Pete Beach and Valencia are level on 42.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: St. Pete Beach and Valencia.

Your match

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

St. Pete Beach
42match

Wins on beaches with your weighting.

Valencia
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Valencia in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
7 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
St. Pete BeachValencia

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). Valencia: 1991-2020 normals, Valencia (1.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSt. Pete BeachValencia
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation2 m15 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsValencia Airport (VLC)9 km from centre109 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSt. Pete BeachValencia
City population8,879840,792
People per km²1736,242
Museums within 10 km245
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months5 months

Where else could you go?

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