VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San DiegoThe Botanical Building, Balboa Park

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; San Diego by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cardiff or San Diego?

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
  • prices
  • day trips

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

Choose San Diego for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on San Diego’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, San Diego 72: San Diego leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, San Diego 62: San Diego leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, San Diego 50: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, San Diego 48: Cardiff leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, San Diego 77: San Diego leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, San Diego 60: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, San Diego 96: San Diego leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, San Diego 38: Cardiff leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, San Diego 44: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, San Diego 26: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, San Diego 56: Cardiff leads by 1 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, San Diego 45: San Diego leads by 18 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on getting around and prices with your weighting.

San Diego
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches 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

San Diego in July

24 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffSan Diego

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). San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffSan Diego
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 m129 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffSan Diego
City population383,5361,386,932
People per km²2,7341,438
Museums within 10 km926
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone1 month

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or San Diego 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.