VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Ocho Rios?

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
  • nightlife

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Ocho Rios’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, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Ocho Rios 16: Cairns leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Ocho Rios 28: Cairns leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Ocho Rios 72: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Ocho Rios 60: Cairns leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Ocho Rios 24: Cairns leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Ocho Rios 26: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Ocho Rios 14: Cairns leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Cairns
Best match
46match

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

Ocho Rios
42match

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
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Ocho Rios in July

33 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsOcho Rios

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.

Ocho Rios's temperatures are measured 62 km from the centre, at Kingston / Norman Manley.

Ocho Rios 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). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsOcho Rios
Official languageEnglishEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5
Emergency number000Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation7 m59 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsOcho Rios
City population146,77816,671
People per km²301-
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Ocho Rios 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. 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.