VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, Las Vegas
Las VegasThe Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Las Vegas by Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Las Vegas?

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
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Las Vegas for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Las Vegas’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, Las Vegas 10: Cairns leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Las Vegas 68: Las Vegas leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Las Vegas 25: Las Vegas leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Las Vegas 88: Las Vegas leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Las Vegas 68: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Las Vegas 25: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Las Vegas 25: Cairns leads by 41 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Las Vegas 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Las Vegas 64: Las Vegas leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Cairns and Las Vegas are level on 35.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Las Vegas 78: Las Vegas leads by 56 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Las Vegas 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Las Vegas.

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 beaches and families with your weighting.

Las Vegas
47match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife 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

Las Vegas in July

40 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
9 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsLas Vegas

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). Las Vegas: 1991-2020 normals, McCarran International Airport (8.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsLas Vegas
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m610 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsHarry Reid International Airport (LAS)4 km from centre159 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsLas Vegas
City population146,778641,903
People per km²3011,843
Museums within 10 km121
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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