VacationSelector

Bucharest 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 CEC Palace on Calea Victoriei, Bucharest
Bucharest

Photo: Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0, cropped

The pyramids of Giza, Cairo
Cairo

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

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Bucharest
51
match

Wins on wellness and nightlife with your weighting.

Cairo
50
match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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.

BucharestCairo
Beaches & swimming. Cairo leads by 2 points.2
Food & drink. Cairo leads by 5 points.5
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 38 points.38
Nightlife. Bucharest leads by 22 points.22
Nature & outdoors. Bucharest leads by 15 points.15
Day trips. Cairo leads by 14 points.14
Good for families. Bucharest leads by 20 points.20
Getting around. Bucharest leads by 17 points.17
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 13 points.13
Affordability. Cairo leads by 25 points.25
Live music & performing arts. Bucharest leads by 10 points.10
Wellness & relaxation. Bucharest leads by 32 points.32
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bucharest 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
JulyBucharestCairo
Daytime high30 °C36 °C
Night-time low16 °C23 °C
Rainfall in the month68 mm0 mm
Sunshine10 hours a day12 hours a day
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
Bucharest
3
6
12
19
24
28
30
31
25
18
11
4
Cairo
19
21
24
29
33
35
36
36
34
30
26
21
Rainfall, mm
Bucharest
40
33
42
49
71
82
68
48
62
59
44
47
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Daylight, hours per day
Bucharest
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Bucharest
2
4
5
6
8
9
10
9
7
5
3
2
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bucharest: 1991-2020 normals, Bucuresti / Imh (10 km from centre). Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromBucharestCairo
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
3 h 10 m
€72-175
OTP · 18 km
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
2 h 15 m
€45-61
OTP · 18 km
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
1 h 10 m
€121-131
OTP · 18 km
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 50 m
€118-127
OTP · 18 km
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
RomeFCO, CIA
2 h 0 m
€79-110
OTP · 18 km
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 40 m
€92-150
OTP · 18 km
3 h 25 m
€263-340
CAI · 17 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 20 m
€123-173
1 stop
OTP · 18 km
4 h 5 m
€245-328
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
4 h 40 m
no fares
OTP · 18 km
3 h 30 m
€262-290
CAI · 17 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 0 m
no fares
OTP · 18 km
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
9 h 40 m
€669-837
1 stop
OTP · 18 km
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
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

MeasureBucharestCairo
Official languageRomanianArabic
CurrencyRomanian Leu (RON)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
Elevation70 m23 m
Main airportBucharest Henri Coandă International Airport (OTP)18 km from centre120 non-stop destinationsCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureBucharestCairo
City population1,716,9619,801,536
People per km²7,59718,564
Museums within 10 km4148
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02

Where else could you go?

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

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Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

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.