VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Newport Beach?

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
  • getting around
  • prices

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

Choose Newport Beach for

  • shopping
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport Beach’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, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Newport Beach 50: Newport Beach leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Newport Beach 20: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Newport Beach 33: Cairns leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Newport Beach 66: Cairns leads by 29 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Newport Beach 20: Cairns leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Newport Beach 15: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Newport Beach 46: Newport Beach leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Newport Beach 44: Cairns leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Newport Beach.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Cairns
46match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

Newport Beach
48match

Wins on shopping 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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsNewport Beach

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). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsNewport Beach
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m3 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsNewport Beach
City population146,77885,239
People per km²301622
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Newport Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.