VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain.

Cardiff or Nuevo Vallarta?

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

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Nuevo Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Nuevo Vallarta’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, Nuevo Vallarta 84: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Nuevo Vallarta 40: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Nuevo Vallarta 6: Cardiff leads by 52 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Nuevo Vallarta 16: Cardiff leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Nuevo Vallarta 75: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Nuevo Vallarta 58: Cardiff leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Nuevo Vallarta 73: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Nuevo Vallarta 25: Cardiff leads by 41 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Nuevo Vallarta 22: Cardiff leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Nuevo Vallarta 45: Cardiff leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Nuevo Vallarta 18: Cardiff leads by 39 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Nuevo Vallarta 55: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Nuevo Vallarta.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around with your weighting.

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches 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

Nuevo Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
206 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffNuevo Vallarta

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.

Nuevo Vallarta has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCardiffNuevo Vallarta
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-6
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m3 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffNuevo Vallarta
City population383,5361,301
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km90
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Nuevo Vallarta 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.