VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The colonnaded court of Luxor Temple, Luxor
LuxorThe colonnaded court of Luxor Temple

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Luxor by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Luxor?

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
  • families

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

Choose Luxor for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Luxor’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, Luxor 6: Cairns leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Luxor 30: Cairns leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Luxor 95: Luxor leads by 73 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Luxor 10: Cairns leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Luxor 32: Cairns leads by 63 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Luxor 62: Luxor leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Luxor 30: Cairns leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Luxor 35: Cairns leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Luxor 25: Cairns leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Luxor 90: Luxor leads by 55 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Luxor 10: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Luxor 28: Cairns leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Luxor.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Luxor
38match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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

Luxor in July

41 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
0 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
CairnsLuxor

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.

Luxor 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). Luxor: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Luxor (6.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsLuxor
Official languageEnglishArabic
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number000Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation7 m89 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsLuxor International Airport (LXR)7 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsLuxor
City population146,778202,232
People per km²301486
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Luxor 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.