VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain.

Cairns or Nuevo Vallarta?

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

  • nightlife
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

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

Choose Nuevo Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Nuevo Vallarta’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, Nuevo Vallarta 84: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Food & drink. Cairns and Nuevo Vallarta are level on 40.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Nuevo Vallarta 6: Cairns leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Nuevo Vallarta 16: Cairns leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Nuevo Vallarta 75: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Nuevo Vallarta 58: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Nuevo Vallarta 73: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Nuevo Vallarta 25: Cairns leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Nuevo Vallarta 22: Cairns leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Nuevo Vallarta 45: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Nuevo Vallarta 18: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Nuevo Vallarta 55: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Nuevo Vallarta.

Your match

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

Cairns
Best match
46match

Wins on nightlife and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches 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

Nuevo Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
206 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsNuevo Vallarta

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.

Nuevo Vallarta has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCairnsNuevo Vallarta
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-6
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m3 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsNuevo Vallarta
City population146,7781,301
People per km²301-
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Nuevo Vallarta 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.