Cardiff or Inverness?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and places to eat with your weighting.
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Cardiff if you want the fuller city trip: more places to eat, more to do after dark, more attractions and park space for children, and warmer summers, with highs near 20°C in July.
Choose Inverness if you want somewhere much smaller and quieter, with the sea 1km from the centre and a drier spring, and you plan to spend your days outside the city.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Cardiff leads by 18 points.18
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 28 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 8 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 2 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 2 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Cardiff leads by 39 points.39
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 21 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 541 | 114 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 32 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Cardiff leads by 19 points.19
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 39 | 20 |
| Museums within 10 km | 61 | 6 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 6 | 5 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 10 | 83 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Nightlife. Cardiff leads by 33 points.33
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 15 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 536 | 113 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 395 | 98 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 74 | 87 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 35 | 4 |
Nature & day trips. Cardiff leads by 41 points.41
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 9 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 18 | 12 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 15 | 11 |
| Land share of disc % | 68 | 88 |
| Park area within 2 km | 88 hectares | 3 hectares |
Good for families. Cardiff leads by 32 points.32
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 32 | 0 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 3 |
| Park area within 2 km | 88 hectares | 3 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Cardiff leads by 21 points.21
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 24 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 51 | 16 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Cardiff and Inverness are level on 54.
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 54 |
| Price level global | 84.9 | 84.9 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Cardiff leads by 2 points.2
| Cardiff | Inverness | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 52 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.7 °C to 20.2 °C | 6.6 °C to 18.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 49 mm to 87 mm | 40 mm to 72 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Cardiff has many times as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs. It also has the stronger countryside case: 18% of surrounding land protected against 12% around Inverness, far more park space near the centre, and 2 theme parks within reach.
Inverness is the more compact trip: the sea is 1km from its centre against Cardiff's 2km, and its handful of museums sits tightly around the centre. It is also the drier of the two in early spring.
Where they are alike
Weather is where the two sit closest. Both stay mild rather than hot: Cardiff runs 8-20°C across the year and Inverness 7-19°C, both peaking in July, and both carry rain in every month.
They are also close at the coast and in their museums. The sea is 1km from Inverness's centre and 2km from Cardiff's, yet swimming is marginal at both, and in each city the museums sit close enough to the centre to cover on foot.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone travelling for food and evenings out should pick Cardiff: many times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, plus many times as many bars and clubs.
Families are better served in Cardiff too. It has more tourist attractions near the centre, far more park space, and 2 theme parks within reach, where Inverness has none.
A traveller wanting a small, quiet base with the sea 1km away and a drier spring, at 40mm in March, will prefer Inverness, provided the days are spent walking rather than sightseeing in town.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figures here are a national price level, identical for both by construction, so they say nothing about how these two compare on cost. This dataset also carries no daily budget for either city, so no cost comparison between Cardiff and Inverness is possible; treat that axis as blank rather than as a tie.
Beach counts flatter both. The sea peaks at 18°C at Cardiff and 14°C at Inverness, and neither reaches 21°C in any month, so being close to the coast is not swimming weather. Inverness's driest months are also its coldest, and Cardiff's warmest months are not its driest.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Inverness: 1991-2020 normals, Kinloss (43.4 km from centre).
Cardiff is the warmer summer, with highs of 20°C in July and August and the sea at 18°C by late summer, so the swimming window, such as it is, sits at the end of summer. Its autumn is the wetter one, at 87mm in October.
Inverness is drier in early spring, with 40mm in March against a wetter Cardiff, though highs are only 9-12°C then. Its summer tops out at 19°C, and it is the wetter of the two in September, at 67mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Cardiff | Inverness |
|---|---|---|
| PalmaPMI | 2 h 20 m no fares BRS · 34 km | 3 h 5 m no fares INV · 12 km |
| Las PalmasLPA | 4 h 0 m no fares BRS · 34 km | 4 h 40 m no fares INV · 12 km |
| KerkyraCFU | 3 h 15 m no fares BRS · 34 km | 3 h 40 m no fares ABZ · 126 km |
| GenevaGVA | 1 h 40 m no fares BRS · 34 km | 2 h 15 m no fares ABZ · 126 km |
| ReusREU | 2 h 5 m no fares BRS · 34 km | 2 h 45 m no fares ABZ · 126 km |
| DalamanDLM | 4 h 10 m no fares BRS · 34 km | 4 h 25 m no fares ABZ · 126 km |
| MalagaAGP | 2 h 35 m no fares CWL · 15 km | 3 h 20 m no fares ABZ · 126 km |
| AlicanteALC | 2 h 25 m no fares CWL · 15 km | 3 h 10 m no fares ABZ · 126 km |
| DublinDUB | 1 h 0 m no fares CWL · 15 km | 1 h 15 m no fares INV · 12 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 20 m no fares CWL · 15 km | 1 h 35 m no fares INV · 12 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it.
Before you go
| Measure | Cardiff | Inverness |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | English |
| Currency | Pound Sterling (GBP) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | G230 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC, UTC+1 in summer | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 or 999 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 41 m | 7 m |
| Main airport | Cardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre8 non-stop destinations | Inverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 8 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cardiff | Inverness |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 383,536 | 47,380 |
| People per km² | 2,734 | 2,289 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 3 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 55 | 15 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or Inverness somewhere new.