VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License.

Cairns or Chiang Mai?

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

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

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

Choose Chiang Mai for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Chiang Mai’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, Chiang Mai 6: Cairns leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Chiang Mai 78: Chiang Mai leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Chiang Mai 65: Chiang Mai leads by 43 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Chiang Mai 45: Chiang Mai leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Chiang Mai 73: Cairns leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Chiang Mai 48: Chiang Mai leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Chiang Mai 55: Cairns leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Chiang Mai 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Chiang Mai 62: Chiang Mai leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Chiang Mai 90: Chiang Mai leads by 55 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Chiang Mai 30: Chiang Mai leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Chiang Mai 82: Chiang Mai leads by 37 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Chiang Mai.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

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

Chiang Mai
Best match
56match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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

Chiang Mai in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsChiang Mai

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). Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsChiang Mai
Official languageEnglishThai
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Baht (THB)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+7
Emergency number000Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation7 m310 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsChiang Mai
City population146,7781,198,000
People per km²3012,958
Museums within 10 km16
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Chiang Mai 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. 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.