VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The skyline over the Schuylkill, Philadelphia
PhiladelphiaThe skyline over the Schuylkill

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Philadelphia by Trev W. Adams, Pexels License.

Cairns or Philadelphia?

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
  • beaches
  • wellness

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

Choose Philadelphia for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Philadelphia’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, Philadelphia 36: Cairns leads by 26 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Philadelphia 62: Philadelphia leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Philadelphia 72: Philadelphia leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Philadelphia 55: Philadelphia leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Philadelphia 52: Cairns leads by 43 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Philadelphia 80: Philadelphia leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Philadelphia 68: Philadelphia leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Philadelphia 66: Philadelphia leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Philadelphia 57: Philadelphia leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Philadelphia 40: Philadelphia leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Philadelphia 72: Philadelphia leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Philadelphia 26: Cairns leads by 19 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Philadelphia.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Philadelphia
Best match
57match

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
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Philadelphia in July

31 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsPhiladelphia

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). Philadelphia: 1991-2020 normals, Philadelphia International Airport (11.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsPhiladelphia
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 m12 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsPhiladelphia International Airport (PHL)11 km from centre129 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsPhiladelphia
City population146,7781,603,797
People per km²3014,339
Museums within 10 km154
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 Philadelphia 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.