VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The cathedral from the gardens, Malaga
MalagaThe cathedral from the gardens

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Malaga by Holger Uwe Schmitt, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Malaga?

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

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

Choose Malaga for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Malaga’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, Malaga 77: Malaga leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Malaga 68: Malaga leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Malaga 65: Malaga leads by 7 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Malaga 62: Malaga leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Malaga 73: Malaga leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Malaga 87: Malaga leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Malaga 70: Malaga leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Malaga 70: Malaga leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Malaga 55: Malaga leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Malaga 55: Malaga leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Malaga 45: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Malaga 42: Malaga leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Malaga.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on live music and the arts with your weighting.

Malaga
Best match
64match

Wins on beaches and food and drink 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

Malaga in July

31 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
22 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffMalaga

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). Malaga: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffMalaga
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation41 m18 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)8 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffMalaga
City population383,536599,063
People per km²2,7341,517
Museums within 10 km932
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

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