VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Clearwater?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around
  • nightlife

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

Choose Clearwater for

  • beaches
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Clearwater’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, Clearwater 90: Clearwater leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Clearwater 38: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Clearwater 18: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Clearwater 34: Cairns leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Clearwater 55: Cairns leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Clearwater 58: Clearwater leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Clearwater 78: Clearwater leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Clearwater 28: Cairns leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Clearwater 27: Cairns leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Cairns and Clearwater are level on 35.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Clearwater 36: Clearwater leads by 14 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Clearwater 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Clearwater.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cairns
46match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

Clearwater
45match

Wins on beaches and live music and the arts 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

Clearwater in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
188 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsClearwater

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.

Clearwater 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.

Clearwater's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

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). Clearwater: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg / High Point (12.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsClearwater
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m9 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsClearwater
City population146,778117,292
People per km²3011,154
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Clearwater 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.