VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The CN Tower and skyline from the Toronto Islands, Toronto
TorontoThe CN Tower and skyline from the Toronto Islands

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Toronto by Dillan Payne, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cairns or Toronto?

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
  • beaches
  • wellness

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

Choose Toronto for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Toronto’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, Toronto 34: Cairns leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Toronto 70: Toronto leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Toronto 50: Toronto leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Toronto 62: Toronto leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Toronto 52: Cairns leads by 43 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Toronto 50: Toronto leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Toronto 74: Toronto leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Toronto 65: Toronto leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Toronto 66: Toronto leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Toronto 34: Cairns leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Toronto 72: Toronto leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Toronto 33: Cairns leads by 12 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Toronto.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Toronto
Best match
55match

Wins on live music and the arts and shopping 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

Toronto in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsToronto

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). Toronto: 1991-2020 normals, Toronto City (1.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsToronto
Official languageEnglishFrench, English
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m76 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsToronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ)20 km from centre191 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsToronto
City population146,7782,794,356
People per km²3014,434
Museums within 10 km132
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months1 month

Where else could you go?

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