VacationSelector

Cairo or Washington DC?

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 US Capitol, Washington DC
Washington DC

Photo: Guohua Song, Pexels License

Your match

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Washington DC
✓ Best match
56
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.

CairoWashington DC
Beaches & swimming. Washington DC leads by 2 points.2
Food & drink. Washington DC leads by 7 points.7
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 12 points.12
Nightlife. Washington DC leads by 9 points.9
Nature & outdoors. Washington DC leads by 34 points.34
Day trips. Washington DC leads by 7 points.7
Good for families. Washington DC leads by 41 points.41
Getting around. Washington DC leads by 37 points.37
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 6 points.6
Affordability. Cairo leads by 67 points.67
Live music & performing arts. Washington DC leads by 17 points.17
Wellness & relaxation. Washington DC leads by 11 points.11
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoWashington DC
Daytime high36 °C32 °C
Night-time low23 °C22 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm108 mm
Sunshine12 hours a dayNo figure
Sea temperatureNo sea25 °C
Daylight14 hours a day15 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
Washington DC
7
9
13
20
24
29
32
31
27
21
14
9
Sea temperature, °C
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Washington DC
3
3
4
9
14
20
25
26
23
18
12
7
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Washington DC
72
65
89
82
101
107
108
83
100
93
74
86
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Washington DC
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Washington DC
No sunshine record

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Washington DC: 1991-2020 normals, Washington National Airport (5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoWashington DC
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
1 h 5 m
€233-271
DCA · 5 km
JeddahJED
2 h 5 m
€158-202
CAI · 17 km
13 h 10 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
RiyadhRUH
2 h 35 m
€154-163
CAI · 17 km
13 h 25 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
10 h 30 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
7 h 35 m
€507-561
1 stop
IAD · 37 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
11 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
1 h 20 m
€158-333
IAD · 37 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
15 h 5 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
5 h 0 m
€226-372
1 stop
DCA · 5 km
Abu DhabiAUH
3 h 30 m
€191-269
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
14 h 5 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
12 h 15 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
1 h 50 m
€199-215
DCA · 5 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
13 h 45 m
no fares
IAD · 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

MeasureCairoWashington DC
Official languageArabic-
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180911
Elevation23 m72 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsRonald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)5 km from centre105 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoWashington DC
City population9,801,536689,545
People per km²18,5643,896
Museums within 10 km4899
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairo or Washington DC somewhere new.

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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.