VacationSelector
Skiers at the Albion base of the ski area, Alta, Utah
Alta, UtahSkiers at the Albion base of the ski area
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle

Photos: Alta, Utah by Sumanch, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Alta, Utah or Cardiff?

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 Alta, Utah for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Alta, Utah’s own page.

Choose Cardiff for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Cardiff’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. Alta, Utah 3, Cardiff 30: Cardiff leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Alta, Utah 15, Cardiff 45: Cardiff leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Alta, Utah 5, Cardiff 58: Cardiff leads by 53 points.
Nightlife. Alta, Utah 4, Cardiff 50: Cardiff leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alta, Utah 90, Cardiff 70: Alta, Utah leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Alta, Utah 40, Cardiff 72: Cardiff leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Alta, Utah 30, Cardiff 58: Cardiff leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Alta, Utah 35, Cardiff 66: Cardiff leads by 31 points.
Shopping & style. Alta, Utah 4, Cardiff 50: Cardiff leads by 46 points.
Affordability. Alta, Utah 15, Cardiff 46: Cardiff leads by 31 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alta, Utah 3, Cardiff 57: Cardiff leads by 54 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alta, Utah 35, Cardiff 27: Alta, Utah leads by 8 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alta, Utah and Cardiff.

Your match

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

Alta, Utah
23match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Alta, Utah in July

22 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Cardiff in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-5°0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Alta, UtahCardiff

Where the figures come from

Alta, Utah has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Cardiff 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.

Cardiff's sunshine is measured 83 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alta, Utah: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlta, UtahCardiff
Official language-English
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number911112 or 999
Elevation2,610 m41 m
Main airportSalt Lake City International Airport (SLC)37 km from centre108 non-stop destinationsCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlta, UtahCardiff
City population228383,536
People per km²192,734
Museums within 10 km09
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alta, Utah or Cardiff somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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). 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.