VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The church of San Francisco under a blue sky, Quito
QuitoThe church of San Francisco under a blue sky

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Quito by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cairns or Quito?

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
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Quito for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Quito’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, Quito 5: Cairns leads by 57 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Quito 54: Quito leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Quito 77: Quito leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Quito 40: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Quito 86: Cairns leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Quito 55: Quito leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Quito 32: Cairns leads by 34 points.
Getting around. Cairns and Quito are level on 45.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Quito 40: Quito leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Quito 78: Quito leads by 43 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Quito 38: Quito leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Quito 44: Cairns leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Quito.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Quito
Best match
50match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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

Quito in July

18 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsQuito

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.

Quito's station stands 208 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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). Quito: 1961-1990 normals, Izobamba-Santa Catalina (16.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsQuito
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Shuar, Northern Quichua
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m2,850 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsMariscal Sucre International Airport (UIO)20 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsQuito
City population146,7781,763,275
People per km²3014,735
Museums within 10 km116
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
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 Quito 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.