VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Arctic Cathedral, Tromso
TromsoThe Arctic Cathedral

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Tromso by Moyan Brenn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cairns or Tromso?

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

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • prices

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

Choose Tromso for

  • getting around
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Tromso’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, Tromso 8: Cairns leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Tromso 36: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Tromso 27: Tromso leads by 5 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Tromso 38: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Tromso 92: Cairns leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Tromso 14: Cairns leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Tromso 45: Cairns leads by 21 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Tromso 60: Tromso leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Tromso 15: Cairns leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Tromso 11: Cairns leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Tromso 32: Tromso leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Tromso 38: Cairns leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Tromso.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Cairns
Best match
46match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Tromso
35match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts 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

Tromso in July

16 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
73 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
10 °Csea
24 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsTromso

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). Tromso: 1991-2020 normals, Tromso (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsTromso
Official languageEnglishNorwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Norwegian Krone (NOK)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110
Elevation7 m20 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsTromsø Airport (TOS)4 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsTromso
City population146,77879,943
People per km²30132
Museums within 10 km18
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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