VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine, Cologne
CologneThe cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Cologne by Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Cologne?

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

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

Choose Cologne for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Cologne’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, Cologne 14: Cairns leads by 48 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Cologne 52: Cologne leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Cologne 67: Cologne leads by 45 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Cologne 66: Cologne leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Cologne 56: Cairns leads by 39 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Cologne 80: Cologne leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Cologne 70: Cologne leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Cologne 74: Cologne leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Cologne 57: Cologne leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Cologne 46: Cologne leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Cologne 68: Cologne leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Cologne 50: Cologne leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Cologne.

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.

Cologne
Best match
58match

Wins on live music and the arts 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

Cologne in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
81 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsCologne

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). Cologne: 1991-2020 normals, Köln-Stammheim (5.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsCologne
Official languageEnglishGerman
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m59 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre115 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsCologne
City population146,7781,025,523
People per km²3012,532
Museums within 10 km140
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
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 Cologne 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.