VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The Cloth Hall on the Main Square, Krakow
KrakowThe Cloth Hall on the Main Square

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Krakow by Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Krakow?

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

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • shopping

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

Choose Krakow for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Krakow’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, Krakow 9: Cardiff leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Krakow 55: Krakow leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Krakow 77: Krakow leads by 19 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Krakow 68: Krakow leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Krakow 62: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Krakow 76: Krakow leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Cardiff and Krakow are level on 58.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Krakow 74: Krakow leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Krakow 48: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Krakow 72: Krakow leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Krakow 55: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Krakow 36: Krakow leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Krakow.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

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

Krakow
Best match
58match

Wins on prices 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.

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

Krakow in July

25 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
100 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffKrakow

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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Krakow: 1991-2020 normals, Krakow (10.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffKrakow
Official languageEnglishPolish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Zloty (PLN)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation41 m219 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsKraków John Paul II International Airport (KRK)11 km from centre132 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffKrakow
City population383,536804,237
People per km²2,7342,459
Museums within 10 km9113
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km14
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or Krakow 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.