VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Ottawa?

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
  • nightlife
  • shopping

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

Choose Ottawa for

  • wellness
  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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, Ottawa 35: Ottawa leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff and Ottawa are level on 45.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Ottawa 35: Cardiff leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Ottawa 68: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Ottawa 55: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Ottawa 62: Cardiff leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Ottawa 40: Cardiff leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Ottawa 40: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Ottawa 52: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cardiff
52match

Wins on day trips and nightlife with your weighting.

Ottawa
51match

Wins on wellness 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

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffOttawa

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). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffOttawa
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 m70 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffOttawa
City population383,5361,017,449
People per km²2,734366
Museums within 10 km920
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Ottawa 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.