VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Newport 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

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • prices

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

Choose Newport Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport 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, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Newport Beach 50: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Newport Beach 20: Cardiff leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Newport Beach 33: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Newport Beach 66: Cardiff leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Newport Beach 70: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Newport Beach 20: Cardiff leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Newport Beach 15: Cardiff leads by 31 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Newport Beach 46: Cardiff leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Newport Beach 44: Newport Beach leads by 17 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Newport Beach.

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 culture and sights with your weighting.

Newport Beach
48match

Wins on beaches and families 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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffNewport 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). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffNewport Beach
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m3 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffNewport Beach
City population383,53685,239
People per km²2,734622
Museums within 10 km94
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

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