VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Assembly Hall on Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Salt Lake CityThe Assembly Hall on Temple Square

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Salt Lake City by hakkun, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cairns or Salt Lake City?

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
  • nightlife
  • day trips

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

Choose Salt Lake City for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Salt Lake City’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, Salt Lake City 12: Cairns leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Cairns and Salt Lake City are level on 40.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Salt Lake City 42: Salt Lake City leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Salt Lake City 30: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Salt Lake City 90: Cairns leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Salt Lake City 34: Cairns leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Salt Lake City 72: Salt Lake City leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Salt Lake City 42: Cairns leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Salt Lake City 36: Salt Lake City leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Salt Lake City 40: Salt Lake City leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Salt Lake City 55: Salt Lake City leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Salt Lake City 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Salt Lake City.

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 beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Salt Lake City
44match

Wins on live music and the arts 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

Salt Lake City in July

34 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsSalt Lake City

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). Salt Lake City: 1991-2020 normals, Salt Lake City International Airport (7.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsSalt Lake City
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m1,288 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSalt Lake City International Airport (SLC)9 km from centre108 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsSalt Lake City
City population146,778199,723
People per km²301690
Museums within 10 km112
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Salt Lake City 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.