VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The old Tampa Bay Hotel across the river, Tampa
TampaThe old Tampa Bay Hotel across the river

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Tampa by Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Tampa?

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 Tampa for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Tampa’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, Tampa 70: Tampa leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Tampa 57: Tampa leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Tampa 42: Tampa leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Tampa 52: Tampa leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Tampa 55: Cairns leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Tampa 54: Tampa leads by 9 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Tampa 78: Tampa leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Tampa 22: Cairns leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Tampa 40: Tampa leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Tampa 40: Tampa leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Tampa 47: Tampa leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Tampa 30: Cairns leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Tampa.

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.

Tampa
Best match
49match

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

Tampa in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °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
CairnsTampa

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). Tampa: 1991-2020 normals, Tampa International Airport (7.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsTampa
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 m30 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsTampa International Airport (TPA)8 km from centre101 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsTampa
City population146,778384,959
People per km²301848
Museums within 10 km16
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 Tampa 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.