VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Lower Broadway and its honky-tonks, Nashville
NashvilleLower Broadway and its honky-tonks

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Nashville by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Nashville?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose Nashville for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Nashville’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, Nashville 14: Cardiff leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Nashville 62: Nashville leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Nashville 50: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Nashville 70: Nashville leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Nashville 46: Cardiff leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Nashville 52: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Nashville 55: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Nashville 30: Cardiff leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Nashville 42: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Nashville 30: Cardiff leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Nashville 82: Nashville leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Nashville 20: Cardiff leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Nashville.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on getting around and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Nashville
46match

Wins on live music and the arts 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

Nashville in July

32 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
104 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffNashville

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). Nashville: 1991-2020 normals, Nashville Airport (9.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffNashville
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m182 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsNashville International Airport (BNA)10 km from centre122 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffNashville
City population383,536689,447
People per km²2,734506
Museums within 10 km912
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 Nashville 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.