VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town

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

Cardiff or Mazatlan?

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

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • shopping

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

Choose Mazatlan for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Mazatlan’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, Mazatlan 80: Mazatlan leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Mazatlan 62: Mazatlan leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Mazatlan 42: Cardiff leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Mazatlan 55: Mazatlan leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Mazatlan 66: Cardiff leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Mazatlan 45: Cardiff leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Mazatlan 60: Mazatlan leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Mazatlan 42: Cardiff leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Mazatlan 30: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Mazatlan 70: Mazatlan leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Mazatlan 40: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Mazatlan 35: Mazatlan leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Mazatlan.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Cardiff
52match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

Mazatlan
52match

Wins on beaches and prices 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

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffMazatlan

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). Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffMazatlan
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-7
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m139 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffMazatlan
City population383,536441,975
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km93
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 Mazatlan 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.