VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
The red cable car above Wellington, Wellington
WellingtonThe red cable car above Wellington

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Wellington by lumoplank, CC0.

Cardiff or Wellington?

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
  • prices

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

Choose Wellington for

  • food and drink
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Wellington’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, Wellington 33: Wellington leads by 3 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Wellington 44: Cardiff leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Wellington 45: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Wellington 78: Wellington leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Wellington 40: Cardiff leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Wellington 68: Wellington leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Wellington 42: Cardiff leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Wellington 33: Cardiff leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Wellington 56: Cardiff leads by 1 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Wellington 30: Wellington leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Wellington.

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.

Wellington
49match

Wins on food and drink 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

Wellington in July

12 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffWellington

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.

Wellington's sunshine is measured 47 km from the centre, at Paraparaumu Aerodrome.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Wellington: 1961-1990 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Wellington Aerodrome Aws (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffWellington
Official languageEnglishEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999111
Elevation41 m0 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsWellington International Airport (WLG)5 km from centre20 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffWellington
City population383,536216,200
People per km²2,734487
Museums within 10 km912
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

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