VacationSelector

Cairo or Doha?

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

A dhow below the towers of West Bay, Doha
Doha

Photo: Gregory Hawken Kramer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Cairo
✓ Best match
50
match

Wins on day trips and prices with your weighting.

Doha
38
match

Wins on beaches and families 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.

CairoDoha
Beaches & swimming. Doha leads by 35 points.35
Food & drink. Cairo leads by 5 points.5
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 41 points.41
Nightlife. Cairo leads by 28 points.28
Nature & outdoors. Cairo leads by 23 points.23
Day trips. Cairo leads by 61 points.61
Good for families. Doha leads by 28 points.28
Getting around. Doha leads by 10 points.10
Shopping & style. Doha leads by 2 points.2
Affordability. Cairo leads by 57 points.57
Live music & performing arts. Cairo leads by 20 points.20
Wellness & relaxation. Doha leads by 23 points.23
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoDoha
Daytime high36 °C43 °C
Night-time low23 °C33 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm0 mm
Sunshine12 hours a dayNo figure
Sea temperatureNo sea33 °C
Daylight14 hours a day14 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
Doha
23
24
29
33
40
43
43
42
39
36
30
25
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Doha
20
19
21
24
28
30
33
34
33
31
27
23
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Doha
11
11
19
4
2
0
0
0
0
1
7
19
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Doha
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Doha
No sunshine record

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Doha: 1991-2020 normals, Doha International Airport (5.5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoDoha
JeddahJED
2 h 5 m
€158-202
CAI · 17 km
2 h 15 m
€239-317
1 stop
DOH · 8 km
Kuwait CityKWI
2 h 35 m
€137-145
CAI · 17 km
1 h 20 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
3 h 55 m
€321-368
DOH · 8 km
RiyadhRUH
2 h 35 m
€154-163
CAI · 17 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
6 h 50 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
5 h 50 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
7 h 55 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
MuscatMCT
3 h 55 m
€242-264
CAI · 17 km
1 h 30 m
€213-233
1 stop
DOH · 8 km
Port SudanPZU
2 h 15 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
2 h 35 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
13 h 20 m
no fares
DOH · 8 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

MeasureCairoDoha
Official languageArabicArabic
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Qatari Rial (QAR)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+3
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180999
Elevation23 m0 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsHamad International Airport (DOH)8 km from centre195 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCairoDoha
City population9,801,5361,186,023
People per km²18,5648,985
Museums within 10 km486
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-9 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairo or Doha 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.