VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Queenstown?

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
  • prices

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Cardiff leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff and Queenstown are level on 45.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Queenstown 12: Cardiff leads by 46 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Queenstown 42: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Queenstown 50: Cardiff leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Queenstown 45: Cardiff leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Queenstown 28: Cardiff leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Queenstown 20: Cardiff leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Queenstown 14: Cardiff leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 15 points.
0255075100

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

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.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffQueenstown

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.

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCardiffQueenstown
Official languageEnglishEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999111
Elevation41 m324 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffQueenstown
City population383,53629,000
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km90
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 Queenstown 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.