VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cairns or Edinburgh?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Edinburgh for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Edinburgh’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, Edinburgh 22: Cairns leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Edinburgh 53: Edinburgh leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 53 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Edinburgh 50: Edinburgh leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Edinburgh 75: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Edinburgh 75: Edinburgh leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Edinburgh 62: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Edinburgh 74: Edinburgh leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Edinburgh 50: Edinburgh leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Edinburgh 30: Cairns leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Edinburgh 72: Edinburgh leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Edinburgh 34: Cairns leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Edinburgh.

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.

Edinburgh
Best match
56match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsEdinburgh

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.

Edinburgh 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.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

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). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsEdinburgh
Official languageEnglishEnglish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number000112 or 999
Elevation7 m47 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsEdinburgh
City population146,778488,050
People per km²3011,884
Museums within 10 km132
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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