VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Silver Pagoda, Phnom Penh
Phnom PenhThe Silver Pagoda

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Phnom Penh by Francisco Anzola, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Phnom Penh?

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
  • families

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

Choose Phnom Penh for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Phnom Penh’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, Phnom Penh 6: Cairns leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Phnom Penh 62: Phnom Penh leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Phnom Penh 62: Phnom Penh leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Phnom Penh 58: Phnom Penh leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Phnom Penh 28: Cairns leads by 67 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Phnom Penh 34: Cairns leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Phnom Penh 32: Cairns leads by 34 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Phnom Penh 35: Cairns leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Phnom Penh 46: Phnom Penh leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Phnom Penh 86: Phnom Penh leads by 51 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Phnom Penh 32: Phnom Penh leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Phnom Penh 50: Phnom Penh leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Phnom Penh.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Phnom Penh
44match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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

Phnom Penh in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
168 mmrain in the month
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsPhnom Penh

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). Phnom Penh: 1991-2020 normals, Phnom-Penh / Pochentong (8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsPhnom Penh
Official languageEnglishKhmer
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Riel (KHR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzACG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+7
Emergency number000Police 117, ambulance 119, fire 118
Elevation7 m11 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsTecho International Airport (KTI)23 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsPhnom Penh
City population146,7782,129,371
People per km²3013,138
Museums within 10 km13
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 Phnom Penh 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.