VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0.

Cairns or Limassol?

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
  • families

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

Choose Limassol for

  • day trips
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Limassol’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, Limassol 77: Limassol leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Limassol 58: Limassol leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Limassol 38: Limassol leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Limassol 50: Limassol leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Limassol 65: Cairns leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Limassol 76: Limassol leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Limassol 63: Cairns leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Limassol 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Limassol 42: Limassol leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Limassol 44: Limassol leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Limassol 32: Limassol leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Limassol 42: Cairns leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Limassol.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

Limassol
Best match
52match

Wins on day trips and food and drink 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

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsLimassol

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.

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

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). Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsLimassol
Official languageEnglishTurkish, Greek, Modern Greek
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m10 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days17 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsLimassol
City population146,778107,970
People per km²3012,405
Museums within 10 km12
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Limassol 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.