VacationSelector

Cairo or Riga?

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 House of the Blackheads at dusk, Riga
Riga

Photo: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Riga
✓ Best match
55
match

Wins on wellness 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.

CairoRiga
Beaches & swimming. Riga leads by 30 points.30
Food & drink. Cairo leads by 8 points.8
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 30 points.30
Nightlife. Riga leads by 4 points.4
Nature & outdoors. Riga leads by 25 points.25
Day trips. Cairo leads by 6 points.6
Good for families. Riga leads by 18 points.18
Getting around. Riga leads by 33 points.33
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 13 points.13
Affordability. Cairo leads by 33 points.33
Live music & performing arts. Riga leads by 15 points.15
Wellness & relaxation. Riga leads by 35 points.35
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoRiga
Daytime high36 °C24 °C
Night-time low23 °C15 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm87 mm
Sunshine12 hours a dayNo figure
Sea temperatureNo sea18 °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
Riga
0
0
4
12
17
21
24
22
17
11
5
1
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Riga
2
1
1
3
9
14
18
19
16
11
8
5
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Riga
43
40
35
33
52
69
87
78
65
82
58
50
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Riga
8
9
12
14
17
18
17
15
13
10
8
7
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Riga
No sunshine record

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Riga: 1991-2020 normals, Riga (4.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoRiga
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
2 h 35 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
2 h 45 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
4 h 5 m
€245-328
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
2 h 10 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
4 h 45 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
ViennaVIE
3 h 25 m
€263-340
CAI · 17 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
BerlinBER
4 h 5 m
€210-279
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
RomeFCO, CIA
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
2 h 50 m
no fares
RIX · 9 km
Sharm el SheikhSSH
1 h 5 m
€135-143
CAI · 17 km
4 h 35 m
no fares
RIX · 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

MeasureCairoRiga
Official languageArabicLatvian
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112
Elevation23 m6 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsRiga International Airport (RIX)9 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCairoRiga
City population9,801,536588,911
People per km²18,564-
Museums within 10 km4812
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 Riga 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. 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.