VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff or San Miguel de Allende?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • wellness
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’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 Miguel de Allende 4: Cardiff leads by 26 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, San Miguel de Allende 62: San Miguel de Allende leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, San Miguel de Allende 62: San Miguel de Allende leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, San Miguel de Allende 38: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, San Miguel de Allende 40: Cardiff leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, San Miguel de Allende 32: Cardiff leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, San Miguel de Allende 48: Cardiff leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, San Miguel de Allende 55: San Miguel de Allende leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, San Miguel de Allende 50: San Miguel de Allende leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, San Miguel de Allende 40: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, San Miguel de Allende 66: San Miguel de Allende leads by 39 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and San Miguel de Allende.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on wellness and food and drink 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 Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffSan Miguel de Allende

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.

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffSan Miguel de Allende
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m1,900 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffSan Miguel de Allende
City population383,53669,811
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km92
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
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 San Miguel de Allende 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.