VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Los Angeles?

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

  • getting around
  • prices
  • day trips

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

Choose Los Angeles for

  • food and drink
  • wellness
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Los Angeles’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, Los Angeles 60: Los Angeles leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Los Angeles 84: Los Angeles leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Los Angeles 66: Los Angeles leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Los Angeles 67: Los Angeles leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Los Angeles 80: Los Angeles leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Los Angeles 60: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Los Angeles 84: Los Angeles leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Los Angeles 25: Cardiff leads by 41 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Los Angeles 80: Los Angeles leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Los Angeles 24: Cardiff leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Los Angeles 83: Los Angeles leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Los Angeles 60: Los Angeles leads by 33 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Los Angeles.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on getting around and prices with your weighting.

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

Wins on food and drink 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

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffLos Angeles

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). Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffLos Angeles
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m106 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffLos Angeles
City population383,5363,898,747
People per km²2,7342,994
Museums within 10 km939
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

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