VacationSelector
The Three Graces fountain, Place de la Bourse, Bordeaux
BordeauxThe Three Graces fountain, Place de la Bourse
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms

Photos: Bordeaux by Gzen92, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain.

Bordeaux 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 Bordeaux for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • day trips

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

Choose Cairns for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • families

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. Bordeaux 50, Cairns 62: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Bordeaux 78, Cairns 40: Bordeaux leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Bordeaux 68, Cairns 22: Bordeaux leads by 46 points.
Nightlife. Bordeaux 50, Cairns 42: Bordeaux leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bordeaux 58, Cairns 95: Cairns leads by 37 points.
Day trips. Bordeaux 78, Cairns 45: Bordeaux leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Bordeaux 57, Cairns 66: Cairns leads by 9 points.
Getting around. Bordeaux 76, Cairns 45: Bordeaux leads by 31 points.
Shopping & style. Bordeaux 56, Cairns 28: Bordeaux leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Bordeaux 42, Cairns 35: Bordeaux leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bordeaux 55, Cairns 22: Bordeaux leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bordeaux 40, Cairns 45: Cairns leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bordeaux and Cairns.

Your match

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

Bordeaux
Best match
59match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink 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.

Bordeaux in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
47 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
No seasea
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
BordeauxCairns

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. Bordeaux: 1991-2020 normals, Bordeaux / Merignac (9.5 km from centre). Cairns: 1993-2010 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Green Island Aws (27 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBordeauxCairns
Official languageFrenchEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+10
Emergency number112000
Elevation1 m7 m
Main airportBordeaux–Mérignac Airport (BOD)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBordeauxCairns
City population267,991146,778
People per km²5,425301
Museums within 10 km181
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km41
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bordeaux 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.