VacationSelector
The Sagrada Família, Barcelona
BarcelonaThe Sagrada Família
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms

Photos: Barcelona by Canaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain.

Barcelona or Cairns?

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 Barcelona for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

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

Choose Cairns for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Cairns’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. Barcelona 75, Cairns 62: Barcelona leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Barcelona 82, Cairns 40: Barcelona leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Barcelona 86, Cairns 22: Barcelona leads by 64 points.
Nightlife. Barcelona 82, Cairns 42: Barcelona leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Barcelona 72, Cairns 95: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Barcelona 80, Cairns 45: Barcelona leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Barcelona 76, Cairns 66: Barcelona leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Barcelona 80, Cairns 45: Barcelona leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Barcelona 75, Cairns 28: Barcelona leads by 47 points.
Affordability. Barcelona 44, Cairns 35: Barcelona leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Barcelona 70, Cairns 22: Barcelona leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Barcelona 38, Cairns 45: Cairns leads by 7 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Barcelona
Best match
72match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Cairns
46match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Barcelona in July

28 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Cairns in July

24 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
30 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
BarcelonaCairns

Where the figures come from

Cairns's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Green Island Aws.

Cairns 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. Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre). Cairns: 1993-2010 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Green Island Aws (27 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBarcelonaCairns
Official languageSpanishEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+10
Emergency number112000
Elevation9 m7 m
Main airportJosep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre235 non-stop destinationsCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBarcelonaCairns
City population1,731,649146,778
People per km²17,094301
Museums within 10 km951
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Barcelona or Cairns 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.