VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License.

Cairns or Samarkand?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

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

Choose Samarkand for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Samarkand’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, Samarkand 4: Cairns leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Samarkand 54: Samarkand leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Samarkand 84: Samarkand leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Samarkand 14: Cairns leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Samarkand 40: Cairns leads by 55 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Samarkand 72: Samarkand leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Samarkand 30: Cairns leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Samarkand 58: Samarkand leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Samarkand 42: Samarkand leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Samarkand 80: Samarkand leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Samarkand 24: Samarkand leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Samarkand 32: Cairns leads by 13 points.
0255075100

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

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 beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Samarkand
45match

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

Samarkand in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsSamarkand

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). Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsSamarkand
Official languageEnglishUzbek
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Uzbekistan Sum (UZS)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCFI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+5
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m702 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsSamarkand
City population146,778546,303
People per km²3015,058
Museums within 10 km111
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Samarkand 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.