VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The beach promenade in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv
Tel AvivThe beach promenade in Tel Aviv

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Tel Aviv by israeltourism, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Tel Aviv?

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
  • prices
  • wellness

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

Choose Tel Aviv for

  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Tel Aviv’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, Tel Aviv 86: Tel Aviv leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Tel Aviv 80: Tel Aviv leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Tel Aviv 57: Tel Aviv leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Tel Aviv 82: Tel Aviv leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Tel Aviv 52: Cairns leads by 43 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Tel Aviv 84: Tel Aviv leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Tel Aviv 68: Tel Aviv leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Tel Aviv 64: Tel Aviv leads by 19 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Tel Aviv 55: Tel Aviv leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Tel Aviv 14: Cairns leads by 21 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Tel Aviv 70: Tel Aviv leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Tel Aviv 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 Tel Aviv.

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 prices with your weighting.

Tel Aviv
Best match
62match

Wins on live music and the arts and food and drink 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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Tel Aviv in July

32 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsTel Aviv

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). Tel Aviv: 1991-2020 normals, Bet Dagan (9.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsTel Aviv
Official languageEnglishHebrew
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)New Israeli Sheqel (ILS)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCHM230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number000Police 100, fire 102
Elevation7 m5 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsBen Gurion International Airport (TLV)13 km from centre111 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsTel Aviv
City population146,778467,875
People per km²3018,998
Museums within 10 km198
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months7 months

Where else could you go?

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