VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
A purple lifeguard tower on South Beach, Miami Beach
Miami BeachA purple lifeguard tower on South Beach

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Miami Beach by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Miami Beach?

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

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose Miami Beach for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Miami Beach’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, Miami Beach 92: Miami Beach leads by 62 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Miami Beach 62: Miami Beach leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Miami Beach 52: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Miami Beach 80: Miami Beach leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Miami Beach 52: Cardiff leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Miami Beach 55: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Miami Beach 60: Miami Beach leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Miami Beach 58: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Miami Beach 55: Miami Beach leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Miami Beach 20: Cardiff leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Miami Beach 55: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Miami Beach 48: Miami Beach leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Miami Beach.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

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

Miami Beach
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches and nightlife 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

Miami Beach in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
186 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffMiami Beach

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). Miami Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (18.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffMiami Beach
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m1 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsMiami International Airport (MIA)16 km from centre198 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffMiami Beach
City population383,53682,890
People per km²2,7342,109
Museums within 10 km914
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 Miami Beach 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.