VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain.

Bilbao 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 Bilbao for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Cairns for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • 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. Bilbao 45, Cairns 62: Cairns leads by 17 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Cairns 40: Bilbao leads by 41 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Cairns 22: Bilbao leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Cairns 42: Bilbao leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Cairns 95: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Cairns 45: Bilbao leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Bilbao 55, Cairns 66: Cairns leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Cairns 45: Bilbao leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Cairns 28: Bilbao leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Cairns 35: Bilbao leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Cairns 22: Bilbao leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Cairns 45: Cairns leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Cairns.

Your match

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

Bilbao
Best match
59match

Wins on food and drink and culture and sights with your weighting.

Cairns
46match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Bilbao in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
54 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
21 °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
BilbaoCairns

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. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Cairns: 1993-2010 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Green Island Aws (27 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoCairns
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
Elevation19 m7 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoCairns
City population351,124146,778
People per km²8,440301
Museums within 10 km171
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao 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.