VacationSelector

Cairo or Edinburgh?

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

The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Photo: Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Edinburgh
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around 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.

CairoEdinburgh
Beaches & swimming. Edinburgh leads by 12 points.12
Food & drink. Cairo leads by 7 points.7
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 21 points.21
Nightlife. Edinburgh leads by 2 points.2
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh leads by 45 points.45
Day trips. Edinburgh leads by 9 points.9
Good for families. Edinburgh leads by 30 points.30
Getting around. Edinburgh leads by 39 points.39
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 8 points.8
Affordability. Cairo leads by 65 points.65
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh leads by 22 points.22
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh leads by 19 points.19
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoEdinburgh
Daytime high36 °C19 °C
Night-time low23 °C11 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm65 mm
Sunshine12 hours a day5 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea14 °C
Daylight14 hours a day17 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
Edinburgh
7
7
9
12
14
17
19
19
17
13
9
7
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Edinburgh
7
6
6
7
10
12
14
14
13
12
10
8
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Edinburgh
62
47
47
43
49
63
65
69
55
80
68
63
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Edinburgh
8
10
12
14
16
18
17
15
13
11
8
7
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Edinburgh
2
3
4
5
6
5
5
5
4
3
3
2

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh's rainfall is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoEdinburgh
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
2 h 20 m
€75-101
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
1 h 20 m
€41-45
EDI · 11 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
4 h 0 m
€201-242
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
1 h 40 m
€78-108
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
6 h 50 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
PraguePRG
3 h 45 m
€271-316
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
2 h 15 m
€135-214
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
AntalyaAYT
1 h 35 m
€220-273
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
4 h 35 m
€195-238
2 stops
EDI · 11 km
RomeFCO, CIA
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
2 h 55 m
€99-141
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
ViennaVIE
3 h 25 m
€263-340
CAI · 17 km
2 h 35 m
€150-240
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
EDI · 11 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

MeasureCairoEdinburgh
Official languageArabicEnglish
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112 or 999
Elevation23 m47 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre162 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoEdinburgh
City population9,801,536488,050
People per km²18,5641,884
Museums within 10 km4832
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

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.