VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
St. Petersburg, Florida

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain.

Cairns or St. Petersburg, Florida?

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
  • getting around
  • wellness

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

Choose St. Petersburg, Florida for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Petersburg, Florida’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, St. Petersburg, Florida 85: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 23 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, St. Petersburg, Florida 52: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, St. Petersburg, Florida 52: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, St. Petersburg, Florida 44: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, St. Petersburg, Florida 58: Cairns leads by 37 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, St. Petersburg, Florida 55: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, St. Petersburg, Florida 70: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, St. Petersburg, Florida 33: Cairns leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, St. Petersburg, Florida 38: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Cairns and St. Petersburg, Florida are level on 35.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, St. Petersburg, Florida 42: St. Petersburg, Florida leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, St. Petersburg, Florida 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and St. Petersburg, Florida.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

St. Petersburg, Florida
Best match
50match

Wins on culture and sights and beaches 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

St. Petersburg, Florida in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
197 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsSt. Petersburg, Florida

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). St. Petersburg, Florida: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (1.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsSt. Petersburg, Florida
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m134 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)16 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsSt. Petersburg, Florida
City population146,778258,308
People per km²301725
Museums within 10 km113
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or St. Petersburg, Florida 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.