VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License.

Cairns or Essaouira?

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
  • nightlife
  • day trips

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

Choose Essaouira for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Essaouira’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, Essaouira 47: Cairns leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Essaouira 48: Essaouira leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Essaouira 14: Cairns leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Essaouira 57: Cairns leads by 38 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Essaouira 17: Cairns leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Essaouira 42: Cairns leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Essaouira 58: Essaouira leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Essaouira 74: Essaouira leads by 39 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Essaouira 28: Essaouira leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Essaouira 66: Essaouira leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Essaouira.

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 nightlife with your weighting.

Essaouira
45match

Wins on prices 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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsEssaouira

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.

Essaouira 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). Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsEssaouira
Official languageEnglishArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1
Emergency number000Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15
Elevation7 m11 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsEssaouira
City population146,77882,962
People per km²30116,592
Museums within 10 km12
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Essaouira 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.