VacationSelector

Athens or Cairo?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens
Athens

Photo: Ranjeet Kumar Singh, Pexels License

The pyramids of Giza, Cairo
Cairo

Photo: Ricardo Liberato, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Athens
✓ Best match
67
match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

AthensCairo
Beaches & swimming. Athens leads by 60 points.60
Food & drink. Athens leads by 18 points.18
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 8 points.8
Nightlife. Athens leads by 32 points.32
Nature & outdoors. Athens leads by 34 points.34
Day trips. Athens leads by 19 points.19
Good for families. Athens leads by 26 points.26
Getting around. Athens leads by 31 points.31
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 3 points.3
Affordability. Cairo leads by 39 points.39
Live music & performing arts. Athens leads by 14 points.14
Wellness & relaxation. Athens leads by 27 points.27
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Athens and Cairo.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyAthensCairo
Daytime high34 °C36 °C
Night-time low24 °C23 °C
Rainfall in the month7 mm0 mm
Sunshine13 hours a day12 hours a day
Sea temperature25 °CNo sea
Daylight15 hours a day14 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Athens
13
14
17
21
27
32
34
35
30
24
19
15
Cairo
19
21
24
29
33
35
36
36
34
30
26
21
Sea temperature, °C
Athens
15
15
15
16
19
22
25
26
25
23
20
17
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Athens
59
46
41
31
19
7
7
6
24
39
74
86
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Daylight, hours per day
Athens
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Athens
5
5
7
8
10
12
13
12
9
7
5
4
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Athens: 1991-2020 normals, Athens / Athenai / Pláka (2.2 km from centre). Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromAthensCairo
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
3 h 30 m
€115-327
1 stop
ATH · 20 km
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
1 h 20 m
€95-237
ATH · 20 km
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
2 h 25 m
€71-91
ATH · 20 km
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
3 h 10 m
€162-235
ATH · 20 km
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
ThessalonikiSKG
1 h 0 m
€103-128
ATH · 20 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 55 m
€97-139
1 stop
ATH · 20 km
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
JeddahJED
3 h 25 m
no fares
ATH · 20 km
2 h 5 m
€158-202
CAI · 17 km
LarnacaLCA
1 h 45 m
€63-80
ATH · 20 km
1 h 20 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
10 h 0 m
€565-638
1 stop
ATH · 20 km
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 35 m
no fares
ATH · 20 km
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureAthensCairo
Official languageGreekArabic
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation74 m23 m
Main airportAthens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (ATH)20 km from centre173 non-stop destinationsCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureAthensCairo
City population643,4529,801,536
People per km²16,49918,564
Museums within 10 km8848
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Athens or Cairo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.