VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Cathedral of Sant'Agata, Catania
CataniaThe Cathedral of Sant'Agata

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Catania by Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Catania?

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

  • families
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Catania for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Catania’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. Cairns 62, Catania 72: Catania leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Catania 77: Catania leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Catania 62: Catania leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Catania 60: Catania leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Catania 83: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Catania 84: Catania leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Catania 50: Cairns leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Catania 48: Catania leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Catania 42: Catania leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Catania 60: Catania leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Catania 55: Catania leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Catania 30: Cairns leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Catania.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

Wins on families and wellness with your weighting.

Catania
Best match
60match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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

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

Catania in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
9 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsCatania

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.

Catania's sunshine is measured 88 km from the centre, at Messina.

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). Catania: 1991-2020 normals, Catania / Fontanarossa (5.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsCatania
Official languageEnglishItalian
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m7 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsCatania-Fontanarossa Airport (CTA)4 km from centre96 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsCatania
City population146,778311,584
People per km²3011,704
Museums within 10 km125
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Catania 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). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.