VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The wide beach and its hotels in morning light, Daytona Beach
Daytona BeachThe wide beach and its hotels in morning light

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Daytona Beach by Han Zheng, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Daytona Beach?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Daytona Beach for

  • day trips
  • beaches
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Daytona Beach’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, Daytona Beach 80: Daytona Beach leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Daytona Beach 36: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Daytona Beach 30: Daytona Beach leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Daytona Beach 40: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Daytona Beach 56: Cairns leads by 39 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Daytona Beach 66: Daytona Beach leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Daytona Beach 60: Cairns leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Daytona Beach 18: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Daytona Beach 27: Cairns leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Daytona Beach 46: Daytona Beach leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Daytona Beach 30: Daytona Beach leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Daytona Beach 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 Daytona Beach.

Your match

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

Cairns
Best match
46match

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

Daytona Beach
43match

Wins on day trips and beaches 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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytona Beach in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsDaytona Beach

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). Daytona Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Daytona Beach / Mansfield Mobile Home Park (4.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsDaytona Beach
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 m4 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsDaytona Beach International Airport (DAB)5 km from centre8 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsDaytona Beach
City population146,77872,647
People per km²301440
Museums within 10 km16
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months9 months

Where else could you go?

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