VacationSelector

Cairo or Reykjavik?

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 city from Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavik
Reykjavik

Photo: Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License

Your match

Cairo
✓ Best match
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Reykjavik
44
match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors 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.

CairoReykjavik
Beaches & swimming. Reykjavik leads by 2 points.2
Food & drink. Cairo leads by 18 points.18
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 71 points.71
Nightlife. Cairo leads by 3 points.3
Nature & outdoors. Reykjavik leads by 62 points.62
Day trips. Cairo leads by 31 points.31
Good for families. Reykjavik leads by 23 points.23
Getting around. Reykjavik leads by 20 points.20
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 33 points.33
Affordability. Cairo leads by 89 points.89
Live music & performing arts. Cairo leads by 5 points.5
Wellness & relaxation. Reykjavik leads by 73 points.73
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoReykjavik
Daytime high36 °C15 °C
Night-time low23 °C9 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm50 mm
Sunshine12 hours a day6 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea11 °C
Daylight14 hours a day20 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
Reykjavik
3
3
4
7
10
13
15
14
11
8
5
3
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Reykjavik
5
5
5
6
7
10
11
11
10
8
7
6
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Reykjavik
86
87
84
56
49
41
50
66
87
80
86
97
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Reykjavik
6
9
12
15
18
21
20
16
13
10
7
4
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Reykjavik
1
2
4
5
7
6
6
5
4
3
1
0

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Reykjavik: 1991-2020 normals, Reykjavik (2.3 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoReykjavik
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
2 h 55 m
€245-283
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
3 h 20 m
€247-346
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
4 h 0 m
€160-192
KEF · 37 km
CopenhagenCPH
4 h 25 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
3 h 10 m
€216-282
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
5 h 35 m
€389-592
KEF · 37 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
4 h 5 m
€245-328
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
3 h 30 m
€313-393
2 stops
KEF · 37 km
AmsterdamAMS
4 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
3 h 5 m
€293-407
2 stops
KEF · 37 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
5 h 30 m
no fares
KEF · 37 km
RomeFCO, CIA
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
4 h 35 m
€255-375
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
KEF · 37 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

MeasureCairoReykjavik
Official languageArabicIcelandic
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Iceland Krona (ISK)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112
Elevation23 m8 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsKeflavik International Airport (KEF)37 km from centre87 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoReykjavik
City population9,801,536138,772
People per km²18,564569
Museums within 10 km4823
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
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 Reykjavik 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.