VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The old town from the sea, Rovinj
RovinjThe old town from the sea

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Rovinj by Vyacheslav Bukharov, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Rovinj?

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
  • nightlife
  • families

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

Choose Rovinj for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Rovinj’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, Rovinj 70: Rovinj leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Rovinj 50: Rovinj leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Rovinj 38: Rovinj leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Rovinj 25: Cairns leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Rovinj 60: Cairns leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Rovinj 68: Rovinj leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Rovinj 52: Cairns leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Rovinj 55: Rovinj leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns and Rovinj are level on 28.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Rovinj 36: Rovinj leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Rovinj 15: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Rovinj 42: Cairns leads by 3 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Rovinj.

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 nature and the outdoors and nightlife with your weighting.

Rovinj
45match

Wins on day trips 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
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Rovinj in July

29 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
44 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsRovinj

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.

Rovinj's temperatures are measured 64 km from the centre, at Trieste.

Rovinj 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). Rovinj: 1991-2020 normals, Trieste (63.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsRovinj
Official languageEnglishCroatian
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m0 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsPula Airport (PUY)31 km from centre34 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsRovinj
City population146,77812,968
People per km²301-
Museums within 10 km11
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Rovinj 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.