VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
St. Petersburg, Florida

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

Cardiff or St. Petersburg, Florida?

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
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose St. Petersburg, Florida for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Petersburg, Florida’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, St. Petersburg, Florida 85: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, St. Petersburg, Florida 52: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, St. Petersburg, Florida 52: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, St. Petersburg, Florida 44: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, St. Petersburg, Florida 58: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, St. Petersburg, Florida 55: Cardiff leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, St. Petersburg, Florida 70: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, St. Petersburg, Florida 33: Cardiff leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, St. Petersburg, Florida 38: Cardiff leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, St. Petersburg, Florida 35: Cardiff leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, St. Petersburg, Florida 42: Cardiff leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, St. Petersburg, Florida 40: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and St. Petersburg, Florida.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Cardiff
52match

Wins on getting around and day trips with your weighting.

St. Petersburg, Florida
50match

Wins on beaches 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

St. Petersburg, Florida in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
197 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffSt. Petersburg, Florida

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). St. Petersburg, Florida: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (1.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffSt. Petersburg, Florida
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m134 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)16 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffSt. Petersburg, Florida
City population383,536258,308
People per km²2,734725
Museums within 10 km913
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or St. Petersburg, Florida 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.