VacationSelector

Cairo or Tokyo?

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

Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo
Tokyo

Photo: Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tokyo
✓ Best match
80
match

Wins on families 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.

CairoTokyo
Beaches & swimming. Tokyo leads by 30 points.30
Food & drink. Tokyo leads by 38 points.38
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 12 points.12
Nightlife. Tokyo leads by 38 points.38
Nature & outdoors. Tokyo leads by 38 points.38
Day trips. Tokyo leads by 19 points.19
Good for families. Tokyo leads by 63 points.63
Getting around. Tokyo leads by 63 points.63
Shopping & style. Tokyo leads by 41 points.41
Affordability. Cairo leads by 47 points.47
Live music & performing arts. Tokyo leads by 36 points.36
Wellness & relaxation. Tokyo leads by 63 points.63
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoTokyo
Daytime high36 °C30 °C
Night-time low23 °C23 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm157 mm
Sunshine12 hours a day5 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea23 °C
Daylight14 hours a day14 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
Tokyo
10
11
14
19
24
26
30
32
28
22
17
12
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Tokyo
14
13
13
15
18
21
23
26
25
22
19
16
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Tokyo
60
57
117
134
140
168
157
155
221
237
97
58
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Tokyo
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
12
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Tokyo
6
6
6
6
6
4
5
6
4
4
5
6

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoTokyo
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
10 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
2 h 45 m
€296-314
HND · 18 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
12 h 10 m
no fares
HND · 18 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
3 h 10 m
€333-353
HND · 18 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
11 h 10 m
€572-637
1 stop
HND · 18 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
15 h 5 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
11 h 0 m
€789-943
HND · 18 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
12 h 5 m
€835-923
HND · 18 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
11 h 55 m
€820-907
1 stop
HND · 18 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
13 h 30 m
€813-1004
HND · 18 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
4 h 5 m
€245-328
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
11 h 40 m
€786-939
1 stop
HND · 18 km
DohaDOH
3 h 5 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
10 h 25 m
€931-1048
1 stop
HND · 18 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 2026-08 to 2026-10, 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

MeasureCairoTokyo
Official languageArabicJapanese
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Yen (JPY)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+9
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180Police 110, fire 119
Elevation23 m6 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsTokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoTokyo
City population9,801,53614,264,798
People per km²18,5646,501
Museums within 10 km48191
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C-4 months

Where else could you go?

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