VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Cairns or New Orleans?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose New Orleans for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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, New Orleans 14: Cairns leads by 48 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, New Orleans 67: New Orleans leads by 45 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, New Orleans 42: Cairns leads by 53 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, New Orleans 52: New Orleans leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, New Orleans 55: Cairns leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, New Orleans 54: New Orleans leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, New Orleans 40: New Orleans leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 58 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, New Orleans 25: Cairns leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and New Orleans.

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.

New Orleans
Best match
54match

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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsNew Orleans

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). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsNew Orleans
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m-2 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsNew Orleans
City population146,778383,997
People per km²301423
Museums within 10 km116
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months7 months

Where else could you go?

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