VacationSelector

Cairo or Lima?

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 fountain on Plaza Mayor, Lima
Lima

Photo: James C., CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cairo
50
match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Lima
51
match

Wins on beaches and food and drink 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.

CairoLima
Beaches & swimming. Lima leads by 32 points.32
Food & drink. Lima leads by 28 points.28
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 30 points.30
Nightlife. Lima leads by 14 points.14
Nature & outdoors. Lima leads by 15 points.15
Day trips. Cairo leads by 32 points.32
Good for families. Lima leads by 10 points.10
Getting around. Cairo and Lima are level on 35.
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 6 points.6
Affordability. Cairo leads by 25 points.25
Live music & performing arts. Lima leads by 3 points.3
Wellness & relaxation. Lima leads by 10 points.10
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoLima
Daytime high36 °C19 °C
Night-time low23 °C16 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm1 mm
Sunshine12 hours a day1 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea18 °C
Daylight14 hours a day12 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
Lima
26
27
27
25
22
20
19
19
19
20
22
24
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Lima
21
22
21
20
19
18
18
17
17
17
18
19
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Lima
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Lima
13
13
12
12
12
11
12
12
12
12
13
13
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Lima
5
5
6
6
3
1
1
1
1
2
3
4

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Lima: 1991-2020 normals, Lima-Callao / Aerop. Internacional Jorgechavez (10.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoLima
MadridMAD
4 h 35 m
€274-412
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
11 h 50 m
€895-903
LIM · 9 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
12 h 45 m
no fares
LIM · 9 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
7 h 35 m
no fares
LIM · 9 km
BarcelonaBCN
4 h 5 m
€267-335
CAI · 17 km
12 h 25 m
€898-998
1 stop
LIM · 9 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
11 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
8 h 0 m
no fares
LIM · 9 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
15 h 5 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
8 h 35 m
no fares
LIM · 9 km
AmsterdamAMS
4 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
13 h 5 m
€876-946
1 stop
LIM · 9 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

MeasureCairoLima
Official languageArabicSpanish, Aymara, Quechua
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Sol (PEN)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC-5
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180111 or 911
Elevation23 m154 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsJorge Chávez International Airport (LIM)9 km from centre61 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoLima
City population9,801,5369,943,800
People per km²18,5643,721
Museums within 10 km4846
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °C-2 months

Where else could you go?

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