Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
Cairns or Playa del Carmen?
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
- culture and sights
What lies behind each score is written up on Cairns’s own page.
Choose Playa del Carmen for
- day trips
- beaches
- nightlife
What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Playa del Carmen.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on nature and the outdoors and culture and sights with your weighting.
Wins on day trips and beaches 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
Playa del Carmen in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
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.
Playa del Carmen 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). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.
Before you go
| Measure | Cairns | Playa del Carmen |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya |
| Currency | Australian Dollar (AUD) | Mexican Peso (MXN) |
| Sockets | I230 V, 50 Hz | AB127 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+10 | UTC-5 |
| Emergency number | 000 | 911 |
| Elevation | 7 m | 8 m |
| Main airport | Cairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinations | Cancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 9 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cairns | Playa del Carmen |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 146,778 | 304,942 |
| People per km² | 301 | - |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 0 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Playa del Carmen somewhere new.