VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Hawthorne Bridge and downtown, Portland
PortlandHawthorne Bridge and downtown

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Portland by Cacophony, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Portland?

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
  • day trips
  • beaches

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

Choose Portland for

  • food and drink
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Portland’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, Portland 20: Cardiff leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Portland 68: Portland leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Portland 38: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Portland 52: Portland leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Portland 84: Portland leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Portland 58: Cardiff leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Portland 55: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Portland 62: Cardiff leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Portland 52: Portland leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Portland 38: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Portland 55: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Portland 42: Portland leads by 15 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Cardiff
52match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Portland
52match

Wins on food and drink 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

Portland in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffPortland

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). Portland: 1991-2020 normals, Portland International Airport (9.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffPortland
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 m152 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsPortland International Airport (PDX)10 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffPortland
City population383,536652,503
People per km²2,7341,736
Museums within 10 km917
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Portland 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.