VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The 1933 courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, now an arts centre, Fort Myers
Fort MyersThe 1933 courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, now an arts centre

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Fort Myers by Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cairns or Fort Myers?

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
  • nightlife

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

Choose Fort Myers for

  • beaches
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Fort Myers’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, Fort Myers 77: Fort Myers leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Cairns and Fort Myers are level on 40.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Fort Myers 32: Fort Myers leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Fort Myers 32: Cairns leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Fort Myers 63: Cairns leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Fort Myers 50: Fort Myers leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Fort Myers 62: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Fort Myers 15: Cairns leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Fort Myers 38: Fort Myers leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Fort Myers 38: Fort Myers leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Fort Myers 36: Fort Myers leads by 14 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Fort Myers 35: Cairns leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Fort Myers.

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.

Fort Myers
43match

Wins on beaches 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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Fort Myers in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
220 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsFort Myers

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.

Fort Myers 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). Fort Myers: 1991-2020 normals, Fort Myers / Page Park (4.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsFort Myers
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 m3 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSouthwest Florida International Airport (RSW)12 km from centre79 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsFort Myers
City population146,77886,395
People per km²301681
Museums within 10 km13
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months10 months

Where else could you go?

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