VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Ottawa?

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

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Ottawa for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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, Ottawa 35: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Ottawa 45: Ottawa leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Ottawa 35: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Ottawa 68: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Ottawa 40: Ottawa leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Ottawa 40: Ottawa leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Ottawa 52: Ottawa leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

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

Ottawa
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsOttawa

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). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsOttawa
Official languageEnglishFrench, English
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m70 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsOttawa
City population146,7781,017,449
People per km²301366
Museums within 10 km120
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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