VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The old town below the fortress, Salzburg
SalzburgThe old town below the fortress

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Salzburg by Leonhard Niederwimmer, Pexels License.

Cairns or Salzburg?

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
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Salzburg for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Salzburg’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, Salzburg 35: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Salzburg 45: Salzburg leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Salzburg 72: Salzburg leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Salzburg 25: Cairns leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Salzburg 86: Cairns leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Salzburg 80: Salzburg leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Salzburg 65: Cairns leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Salzburg 72: Salzburg leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Salzburg 48: Salzburg leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Salzburg 32: Cairns leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Salzburg 80: Salzburg leads by 58 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Salzburg 55: Salzburg leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Salzburg.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Salzburg
Best match
58match

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
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Salzburg in July

25 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
159 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsSalzburg

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). Salzburg: 1991-2020 normals, Salzburg (3.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsSalzburg
Official languageEnglishGerman, Austrian Sign Language
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 m424 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSalzburg Airport (SZG)3 km from centre64 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsSalzburg
City population146,778155,021
People per km²3012,360
Museums within 10 km138
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
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 Salzburg 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.