VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or El Nido?

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

  • day trips
  • families
  • getting around

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

Choose El Nido for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on El Nido’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, El Nido 92: El Nido leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, El Nido 27: Cairns leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, El Nido 4: Cairns leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, El Nido 30: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, El Nido 87: Cairns leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, El Nido 8: Cairns leads by 37 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, El Nido 40: Cairns leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, El Nido 22: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, El Nido 7: Cairns leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, El Nido 64: El Nido leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, El Nido 7: Cairns leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, El Nido 46: El Nido leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and El Nido.

Your match

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

Cairns
Best match
46match

Wins on day trips and families with your weighting.

El Nido
36match

Wins on beaches and prices 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

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsEl Nido

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.

El Nido has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCairnsEl Nido
Official languageEnglishEnglish, Filipino, Taglish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Philippine Peso (PHP)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+8
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m35 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsEl Nido
City population146,77851,367
People per km²30156
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or El Nido 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.