VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier, Virginia Beach
Virginia BeachThe beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Virginia Beach by SchuminWeb, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Virginia Beach?

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
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Virginia Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Virginia Beach’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, Virginia Beach 77: Virginia Beach leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Virginia Beach 42: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Virginia Beach 30: Cardiff leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Virginia Beach 37: Cardiff leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Virginia Beach 56: Cardiff leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Virginia Beach 64: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Virginia Beach 75: Virginia Beach leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Virginia Beach 27: Cardiff leads by 39 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Virginia Beach 32: Cardiff leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Virginia Beach 40: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Virginia Beach 38: Cardiff leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Virginia Beach 32: Virginia Beach leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Virginia Beach.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

Virginia Beach
46match

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

Virginia Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
152 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffVirginia Beach

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). Virginia Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Virginia Beach / Gatewood Park (5.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffVirginia Beach
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 m7 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsNorfolk International Airport (ORF)20 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffVirginia Beach
City population383,536459,470
People per km²2,734-
Museums within 10 km92
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

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