VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The opera house on Place de la Comédie, Montpellier
MontpellierThe opera house on Place de la Comédie

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Montpellier by Peter, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Montpellier?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Montpellier for

  • live music and the arts
  • day trips
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Montpellier’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, Montpellier 64: Montpellier leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Montpellier 64: Montpellier leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Montpellier 60: Montpellier leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Montpellier 56: Montpellier leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Montpellier 72: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Montpellier 85: Montpellier leads by 40 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Montpellier 62: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Montpellier 74: Montpellier leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Montpellier 47: Montpellier leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Montpellier 50: Montpellier leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Montpellier 63: Montpellier leads by 41 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Montpellier 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 Montpellier.

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 families with your weighting.

Montpellier
Best match
62match

Wins on live music and the arts and day trips 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

Montpellier in July

30 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
17 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsMontpellier

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). Montpellier: 1991-2020 normals, Montpellier (7.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsMontpellier
Official languageEnglishFrench
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m7 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsMontpellier-Méditerranée Airport (MPL)8 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsMontpellier
City population146,778310,240
People per km²3015,452
Museums within 10 km114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months2 months

Where else could you go?

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