VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The White Tower from the promenade, Thessaloniki
ThessalonikiThe White Tower from the promenade

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Thessaloniki by Destinygreece, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Thessaloniki?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Thessaloniki for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Thessaloniki’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, Thessaloniki 55: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Thessaloniki 77: Thessaloniki leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Thessaloniki 73: Thessaloniki leads by 51 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Thessaloniki 76: Thessaloniki leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Thessaloniki 66: Cairns leads by 29 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Thessaloniki 74: Thessaloniki leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Thessaloniki 50: Cairns leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Thessaloniki 60: Thessaloniki leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Thessaloniki 50: Thessaloniki leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Thessaloniki 66: Thessaloniki leads by 31 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Thessaloniki 52: Thessaloniki leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Thessaloniki 33: Cairns leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Thessaloniki.

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 families with your weighting.

Thessaloniki
Best match
61match

Wins on culture and sights 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
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Thessaloniki in July

32 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
23 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsThessaloniki

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). Thessaloniki: 1991-2020 normals, Thessaloniki Airport (14 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsThessaloniki
Official languageEnglishGreek
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m6 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsThessaloniki Macedonia International Airport (SKG)14 km from centre90 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsThessaloniki
City population146,778309,617
People per km²30116,042
Museums within 10 km132
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairns or Thessaloniki 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.