VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The old railway depot in the snow, Steamboat Springs
Steamboat SpringsThe old railway depot in the snow

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Steamboat Springs by Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Steamboat Springs?

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

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

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

Choose Steamboat Springs for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Steamboat Springs’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, Steamboat Springs 7: Cardiff leads by 23 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Steamboat Springs 30: Cardiff leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Steamboat Springs 14: Cardiff leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Steamboat Springs 20: Cardiff leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Steamboat Springs 88: Steamboat Springs leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Steamboat Springs 12: Cardiff leads by 60 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Steamboat Springs 62: Steamboat Springs leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Steamboat Springs 46: Cardiff leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Steamboat Springs 22: Cardiff leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Steamboat Springs 17: Cardiff leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Steamboat Springs 28: Cardiff leads by 29 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Steamboat Springs 70: Steamboat Springs leads by 43 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Steamboat Springs.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Steamboat Springs
35match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors 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

Steamboat Springs in July

28 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffSteamboat Springs

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.

Steamboat Springs 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). Steamboat Springs: 2011-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Steamboat Springs / Steamboat Ii (5.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffSteamboat Springs
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m2,052 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsYampa Valley Airport (HDN)33 km from centre17 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffSteamboat Springs
City population383,53613,224
People per km²2,734503
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 Steamboat Springs 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.