VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Huatulco?

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 Cardiff for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Huatulco for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Huatulco’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. Cardiff 30, Huatulco 86: Huatulco leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Huatulco 44: Cardiff leads by 1 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Huatulco 15: Cardiff leads by 43 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Huatulco 24: Cardiff leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Huatulco 76: Huatulco leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Huatulco 40: Cardiff leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Huatulco 56: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Huatulco 33: Cardiff leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Huatulco 20: Cardiff leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Huatulco 62: Huatulco leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Huatulco 9: Cardiff leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Huatulco 52: Huatulco leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Huatulco.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

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

Huatulco
43match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Huatulco in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
156 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffHuatulco

Where the figures come from

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.

Huatulco's temperatures are measured 42 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Huatulco's station stands 177 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Huatulco 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. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffHuatulco
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m220 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffHuatulco
City population383,5367,409
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km90
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or Huatulco 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.