VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The white beach below the high-rise hotels, Orange Beach
Orange BeachThe white beach below the high-rise hotels

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

Cardiff or Orange 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

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • shopping

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

Choose Orange Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Orange 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, Orange Beach 86: Orange Beach leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Orange Beach 40: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Orange Beach 7: Cardiff leads by 51 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Orange Beach 30: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Orange Beach 60: Cardiff leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Orange Beach 50: Cardiff leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Orange Beach 75: Orange Beach leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Orange Beach 15: Cardiff leads by 51 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Orange Beach 25: Cardiff leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Orange Beach 38: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Orange Beach 32: Cardiff leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Orange Beach 32: Orange Beach leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Orange Beach.

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.

Orange Beach
41match

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

Orange Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
200 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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffOrange 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). Orange Beach: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Gulf Shores / Bay Village Mobile Home Park (10.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffOrange Beach
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 m4 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsPensacola International Airport (PNS)41 km from centre27 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffOrange Beach
City population383,5368,095
People per km²2,734196
Museums within 10 km90
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone8 months

Where else could you go?

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