VacationSelector

Cairo or Chicago?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The pyramids of Giza, Cairo
Cairo

Photo: Ricardo Liberato, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago
Chicago

Photo: Jesus Toledo, Pexels License

Your match

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and day trips with your weighting.

Chicago
✓ Best match
62
match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

CairoChicago
Beaches & swimming. Chicago leads by 40 points.40
Food & drink. Chicago leads by 20 points.20
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 18 points.18
Nightlife. Chicago leads by 29 points.29
Nature & outdoors. Chicago leads by 18 points.18
Day trips. Cairo leads by 24 points.24
Good for families. Chicago leads by 46 points.46
Getting around. Chicago leads by 37 points.37
Shopping & style. Chicago leads by 12 points.12
Affordability. Cairo leads by 62 points.62
Live music & performing arts. Chicago leads by 32 points.32
Wellness & relaxation. Chicago leads by 18 points.18
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairo and Chicago.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyCairoChicago
Daytime high36 °C29 °C
Night-time low23 °C20 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm102 mm
Sunshine12 hours a dayNo figure
Sea temperatureNo sea21 °C
Daylight14 hours a day15 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Cairo
19
21
24
29
33
35
36
36
34
30
26
21
Chicago
0
3
9
15
22
27
29
28
25
17
10
3
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Chicago
3
2
2
4
7
14
21
23
20
15
9
6
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Chicago
58
54
68
105
121
115
102
104
85
98
69
59
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Chicago
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Chicago
No sunshine record

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoChicago
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
2 h 5 m
€201-231
ORD · 25 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
9 h 10 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
11 h 0 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
8 h 30 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
15 h 5 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
4 h 0 m
€195-265
1 stop
ORD · 25 km
Abu DhabiAUH
3 h 30 m
€191-269
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
14 h 25 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
11 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
1 h 30 m
€189-423
ORD · 25 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
8 h 10 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km
RomeFCO, CIA
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
9 h 45 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km
TokyoHND, NRT
11 h 55 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
12 h 35 m
no fares
ORD · 25 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-10 to 2026-12, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureCairoChicago
Official languageArabic-
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180911
Elevation23 m179 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsChicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre274 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoChicago
City population9,801,5362,746,388
People per km²18,5644,529
Museums within 10 km4843
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C-1 month

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairo or Chicago somewhere new.

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Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.