VacationSelector
The Esplanade boardwalk and its palms, Cairns
CairnsThe Esplanade boardwalk and its palms
The red cable car above Wellington, Wellington
WellingtonThe red cable car above Wellington

Photos: Cairns by Donaldytong, Public domain; Wellington by lumoplank, CC0.

Cairns or Wellington?

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 Wellington for

  • live music and the arts
  • getting around
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Wellington’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, Wellington 33: Cairns leads by 29 points.
Food & drink. Cairns 40, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Cairns 22, Wellington 44: Wellington leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Cairns 42, Wellington 45: Wellington leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cairns 95, Wellington 78: Cairns leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Cairns 45, Wellington 40: Cairns leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Cairns 66, Wellington 62: Cairns leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cairns 45, Wellington 68: Wellington leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Cairns 28, Wellington 42: Wellington leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Cairns 35, Wellington 33: Cairns leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cairns 22, Wellington 56: Wellington leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cairns 45, Wellington 30: Cairns leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairns and Wellington.

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.

Wellington
Best match
49match

Wins on live music and the arts and getting around 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

Wellington in July

12 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0200400600JFMAMJJASOND
CairnsWellington

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.

Wellington's sunshine is measured 47 km from the centre, at Paraparaumu Aerodrome.

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). Wellington: 1961-1990 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Wellington Aerodrome Aws (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCairnsWellington
Official languageEnglishEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number000111
Elevation7 m0 m
Main airportCairns International Airport (CNS)6 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsWellington International Airport (WLG)5 km from centre20 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairnsWellington
City population146,778216,200
People per km²301487
Museums within 10 km112
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 Wellington 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.