VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The minaret and dome of the Zitouna Mosque, Tunis
TunisThe minaret and dome of the Zitouna Mosque

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

Cairns or Tunis?

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
  • nightlife

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

Choose Tunis for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Tunis’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, Tunis 60: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Tunis 60: Tunis leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Tunis 76: Tunis leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Tunis 33: Cairns leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Tunis 45: Cairns leads by 50 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Tunis 77: Tunis leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Tunis 38: Cairns leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Tunis 48: Tunis leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Tunis 50: Tunis leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Tunis 86: Tunis leads by 51 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Tunis 38: Tunis leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Tunis 58: Tunis leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Tunis.

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.

Tunis
Best match
56match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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

Tunis in July

34 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsTunis

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). Tunis: 1991-2020 normals, Tunis-Carthage (6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsTunis
Official languageEnglishArabic
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Tunisian Dinar (TND)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1
Emergency number000Police 197, ambulance 190, fire 198
Elevation7 m4 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsTunis Carthage International Airport (TUN)7 km from centre56 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsTunis
City population146,778602,560
People per km²3012,834
Museums within 10 km116
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
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 Tunis 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.