VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, New York
New YorkBrooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; New York by Jakub Hałun, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or New York?

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
  • prices
  • beaches

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

Choose New York for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on New York’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 York 50: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, New York 92: New York leads by 52 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, New York 89: New York leads by 67 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, New York 97: New York leads by 55 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, New York 55: Cairns leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, New York 68: New York leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, New York 70: New York leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, New York 82: New York leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, New York 97: New York leads by 69 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, New York 12: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, New York 99: New York leads by 77 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, New York 42: Cairns leads by 3 points.
0255075100

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

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 prices with your weighting.

New York
Best match
71match

Wins on live music and the arts and shopping 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 York in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
107 mmrain in the month
22 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsNew York

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 York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsNew York
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m25 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre189 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsNew York
City population146,7788,804,190
People per km²3017,256
Museums within 10 km1157
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

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