VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Big Ben and Westminster Bridge, London
LondonBig Ben and Westminster Bridge

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; London by AXP Photography, Pexels License.

Cairns or London?

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
  • beaches
  • prices

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

Choose London for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on London’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, London 25: Cairns leads by 37 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, London 84: London leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, London 94: London leads by 72 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, London 88: London leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, London 57: Cairns leads by 38 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, London 90: London leads by 45 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, London 82: London leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, London 85: London leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, London 95: London leads by 67 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, London 15: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, London 98: London leads by 76 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, London 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
0255075100

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

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 beaches with your weighting.

London
Best match
71match

Wins on live music and the arts 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
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

London in July

23 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsLondon

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). London: 1992-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, London Weather Centre (1.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsLondon
Official languageEnglishEnglish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number000112 or 999
Elevation7 m4 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsLondon Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre224 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsLondon
City population146,7788,799,728
People per km²3015,598
Museums within 10 km1216
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km14
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 London 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.