VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Cardiff or Phuket?

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
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Phuket for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 21 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Phuket 35: Cardiff leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Phuket 45: Cardiff leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Phuket 22: Cardiff leads by 44 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Phuket 42: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Phuket 20: Cardiff leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 55 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

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

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 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

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffPhuket

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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffPhuket
Official languageEnglishThai
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Baht (THB)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number112 or 999Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation41 m19 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffPhuket
City population383,53677,610
People per km²2,7346,468
Museums within 10 km92
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Phuket 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. 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.