VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Punta del Este

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Punta del Este?

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
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

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

Choose Punta del Este for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta del Este’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, Punta del Este 72: Punta del Este leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff and Punta del Este are level on 45.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Punta del Este 22: Cardiff leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Punta del Este 60: Punta del Este leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Punta del Este 55: Cardiff leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Punta del Este 45: Cardiff leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Punta del Este 55: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Punta del Este 35: Cardiff leads by 31 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Punta del Este 42: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Punta del Este 20: Cardiff leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Punta del Este 22: Cardiff leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Punta del Este 32: Punta del Este leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Punta del Este.

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 live music and the arts with your weighting.

Punta del Este
42match

Wins on beaches and nightlife 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

Punta del Este in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
101 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffPunta del Este

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.

Punta del Este's temperatures are measured 79 km from the centre, at Rocha.

Punta del Este 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Punta del Este: 1991-2020 normals, Rocha (78.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffPunta del Este
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Peso Uruguayo (UYU)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCFIL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m11 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsCapitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (PDP)18 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffPunta del Este
City population383,5369,277
People per km²2,734455
Museums within 10 km95
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or Punta del Este 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.