VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The cathedral of Santa Marta, Santa Marta
Santa MartaThe cathedral of Santa Marta

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Santa Marta by Oliver H, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cairns or Santa Marta?

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

  • families
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Santa Marta for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Marta’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, Santa Marta 70: Santa Marta leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Santa Marta 44: Santa Marta leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Santa Marta 34: Santa Marta leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Santa Marta 50: Santa Marta leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Santa Marta 84: Cairns leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Santa Marta 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Santa Marta 40: Cairns leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Santa Marta 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Santa Marta 27: Cairns leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Santa Marta 80: Santa Marta leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Santa Marta 17: Cairns leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Santa Marta 30: Cairns leads by 15 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Cairns
46match

Wins on families and wellness with your weighting.

Santa Marta
46match

Wins on prices 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

Santa Marta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsSanta Marta

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). Santa Marta: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Marta / Simon Bolivar (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsSanta Marta
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5
Emergency number000123
Elevation7 m8 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSimón Bolívar International Airport (SMR)13 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsSanta Marta
City population146,778505,915
People per km²3011,723
Museums within 10 km13
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Santa Marta 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.