VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The US Capitol, Washington DC
Washington DCThe US Capitol

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Washington DC by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Cardiff or Washington DC?

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

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Washington DC for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Washington DC’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, Washington DC 12: Cardiff leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Washington DC 67: Washington DC leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Washington DC 84: Washington DC leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Washington DC 57: Washington DC leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Washington DC 64: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Washington DC 73: Washington DC leads by 1 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Washington DC 73: Washington DC leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Washington DC 72: Washington DC leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Washington DC 52: Washington DC leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Washington DC 28: Cardiff leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Washington DC 67: Washington DC leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Washington DC 26: Cardiff leads by 1 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Cardiff
52match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Washington DC
Best match
56match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Washington DC in July

32 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
108 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffWashington DC

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). Washington DC: 1991-2020 normals, Washington National Airport (5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffWashington DC
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 m72 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsRonald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)5 km from centre105 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffWashington DC
City population383,536689,545
People per km²2,7343,896
Museums within 10 km998
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

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