VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The US Capitol, Washington DC
Washington DCThe US Capitol

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Washington DC by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Cairns or Washington DC?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose Washington DC for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Washington DC’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, Washington DC 12: Cairns leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Washington DC 67: Washington DC leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Washington DC 84: Washington DC leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Washington DC 57: Washington DC leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Washington DC 64: Cairns leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Washington DC 73: Washington DC leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Washington DC 73: Washington DC leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Washington DC 72: Washington DC leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Washington DC 52: Washington DC leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Washington DC 28: Cairns leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Washington DC 67: Washington DC leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Washington DC 26: Cairns leads by 19 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Washington DC.

Your match

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

Cairns
46match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Washington DC
Best match
56match

Wins on culture and sights 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
24 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Washington DC in July

32 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
108 mmrain in the month
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsWashington DC

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). Washington DC: 1991-2020 normals, Washington National Airport (5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsWashington DC
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation7 m72 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsRonald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)5 km from centre105 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsWashington DC
City population146,778689,545
People per km²3013,896
Museums within 10 km198
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

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