VacationSelector

Cairo or Manila?

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 Manila Central Post Office on the Pasig, Manila
Manila

Photo: Kenneth Surillo, Pexels License

Your match

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Cairo
50
match

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

Manila
48
match

Wins on wellness and nightlife 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.

CairoManila
Beaches & swimming. Manila leads by 2 points.2
Food & drink. Manila leads by 4 points.4
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 42 points.42
Nightlife. Manila leads by 16 points.16
Nature & outdoors. Manila leads by 10 points.10
Day trips. Cairo leads by 24 points.24
Good for families. Manila leads by 10 points.10
Getting around. Cairo leads by 9 points.9
Shopping & style. Manila leads by 2 points.2
Affordability. Cairo leads by 18 points.18
Live music & performing arts. Cairo and Manila are level on 50.
Wellness & relaxation. Manila leads by 25 points.25
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoManila
Daytime high36 °C32 °C
Night-time low23 °C25 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm487 mm
Sunshine12 hours a dayNo figure
Sea temperatureNo sea29 °C
Daylight14 hours a day13 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
Manila
31
31
33
35
34
33
32
31
31
32
31
31
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Manila
27
27
28
29
30
30
29
29
29
29
28
28
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Manila
26
24
40
36
220
314
487
564
509
297
152
109
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Manila
11
12
12
13
13
13
13
13
12
12
12
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Manila
No sunshine record

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Manila: 1991-2020 normals, Science Garden (6 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoManila
RiyadhRUH
2 h 35 m
€154-163
CAI · 17 km
9 h 50 m
€435-460
1 stop
MNL · 11 km
TokyoHND, NRT
11 h 55 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
4 h 10 m
€304-317
MNL · 11 km
JeddahJED
2 h 5 m
€158-202
CAI · 17 km
10 h 45 m
no fares
MNL · 11 km
Kuwait CityKWI
2 h 35 m
€137-145
CAI · 17 km
9 h 35 m
no fares
MNL · 11 km
DammamDMM
2 h 50 m
€195-226
CAI · 17 km
9 h 25 m
no fares
MNL · 11 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
11 h 25 m
no fares
MNL · 11 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
3 h 30 m
€262-290
CAI · 17 km
8 h 45 m
€428-448
MNL · 11 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
4 h 5 m
€211-222
1 stop
MNL · 11 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
13 h 20 m
no fares
MNL · 11 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
16 h 45 m
no fares
MNL · 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

MeasureCairoManila
Official languageArabicEnglish, Filipino, Taglish
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Philippine Peso (PHP)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+8
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180911
Elevation23 m9 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsNinoy Aquino International Airport (MNL)11 km from centre90 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoManila
City population9,801,5361,902,590
People per km²18,56476,104
Museums within 10 km4827
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

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