VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Montreal?

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
  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Montreal for

  • food and drink
  • wellness
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Montreal’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, Montreal 25: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Montreal 78: Montreal leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Montreal 60: Montreal leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Montreal 75: Montreal leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Montreal 66: Cardiff leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Montreal 55: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Montreal 68: Montreal leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Montreal 72: Montreal leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Montreal 60: Montreal leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Montreal 45: Cardiff leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Montreal 76: Montreal leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Montreal 57: Montreal leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Montreal.

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on day trips and beaches with your weighting.

Montreal
Best match
61match

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

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffMontreal

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). Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffMontreal
Official languageEnglishFrench, English
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
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 m31 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffMontreal
City population383,5361,895,211
People per km²2,7343,806
Museums within 10 km937
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Montreal 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.