VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The harbour front with the church tower above the houses, Saint-Tropez
Saint-TropezThe harbour front with the church tower above the houses

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Saint-Tropez by AXP Photography, Pexels License.

Cairns or Saint-Tropez?

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

  • prices
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Saint-Tropez for

  • shopping
  • beaches
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Saint-Tropez’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, Saint-Tropez 82: Saint-Tropez leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Saint-Tropez 48: Saint-Tropez leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Saint-Tropez 35: Saint-Tropez leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Saint-Tropez 60: Saint-Tropez leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Saint-Tropez 72: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Saint-Tropez 57: Saint-Tropez leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Saint-Tropez 42: Cairns leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Saint-Tropez 32: Cairns leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Saint-Tropez 64: Saint-Tropez leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Saint-Tropez 8: Cairns leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Saint-Tropez 18: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Saint-Tropez 35: Cairns leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Saint-Tropez.

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 prices and families with your weighting.

Saint-Tropez
46match

Wins on shopping 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

Saint-Tropez in July

32 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
10 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsSaint-Tropez

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.

Saint-Tropez 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.

Saint-Tropez's sunshine is measured 62 km from the centre, at Nice.

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). Saint-Tropez: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Le Luc (24.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsSaint-Tropez
Official languageEnglishFrench
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m0 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)64 km from centre130 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsSaint-Tropez
City population146,7783,582
People per km²301320
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Saint-Tropez 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.