VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, Venice
VeniceThe Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Venice by David Vives, Pexels License.

Cairns or Venice?

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 Venice for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Venice’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, Venice 56: Cairns leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Venice 60: Venice leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Venice 94: Venice leads by 72 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Venice 27: Cairns leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Venice 45: Cairns leads by 50 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Venice 86: Venice leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Venice 45: Cairns leads by 21 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Venice 68: Venice leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Venice 57: Venice leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Venice 20: Cairns leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Venice 62: Venice leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Venice 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Venice.

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.

Venice
Best match
55match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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

Venice in July

29 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
61 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsVenice

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.

Venice 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.

Venice's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Treviso / S. Angelo.

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). Venice: 1991-2020 normals, Venezia / Tessera (6.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsVenice
Official languageEnglishItalian
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number000112
Elevation7 m2 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsVenice Marco Polo Airport (VCE)7 km from centre103 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsVenice
City population146,778250,369
People per km²301602
Museums within 10 km152
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km15
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

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