Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License.
Cairns or Cape Town?
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 Cairns for
- getting around
- families
- beaches
What lies behind each score is written up on Cairns’s own page.
Choose Cape Town for
- culture and sights
- prices
- food and drink
What lies behind each score is written up on Cape Town’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Cape Town.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on getting around and families with your weighting.
Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.
What matters to you?
When should you go?
Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
Cairns in July
Cape Town in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
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. Cairns: 1993-2010 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Green Island Aws (27 km from centre). Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Cairns | Cape Town |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language |
| Currency | Australian Dollar (AUD) | Rand (ZAR) |
| Sockets | I230 V, 50 Hz | CMN230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+10 | UTC+2 |
| Emergency number | 000 | 112 |
| Elevation | 7 m | 5 m |
| Main airport | Cairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinations | Cape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cairns | Cape Town |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 146,778 | 3,776,313 |
| People per km² | 301 | 1,538 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 22 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 3 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Cape Town somewhere new.