VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Puerto Escondido?

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

  • families
  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Puerto Escondido 48: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Puerto Escondido 8: Cairns leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Puerto Escondido 78: Cairns leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Puerto Escondido 35: Cairns leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Puerto Escondido 42: Cairns leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Puerto Escondido 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Puerto Escondido 22: Cairns leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Puerto Escondido 12: Cairns leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cairns
46match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on prices 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

24 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
30 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsPuerto Escondido

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.

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsPuerto Escondido
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-6
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m60 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsPuerto Escondido
City population146,77829,903
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 Puerto Escondido 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.