VacationSelector

Cairo or Zurich?

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 Limmat from Quaibrücke, Zurich
Zurich

Photo: Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Zurich
✓ Best match
63
match

Wins on getting around 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.

CairoZurich
Beaches & swimming. Zurich leads by 35 points.35
Food & drink. Cairo leads by 7 points.7
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 38 points.38
Nightlife. Zurich leads by 14 points.14
Nature & outdoors. Zurich leads by 50 points.50
Day trips. Zurich leads by 18 points.18
Good for families. Zurich leads by 44 points.44
Getting around. Zurich leads by 60 points.60
Shopping & style. Zurich leads by 8 points.8
Affordability. Cairo leads by 92 points.92
Live music & performing arts. Zurich leads by 20 points.20
Wellness & relaxation. Zurich leads by 43 points.43
0255075100

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

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
JulyCairoZurich
Daytime high36 °C24 °C
Night-time low23 °C15 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm126 mm
Sunshine12 hours a day7 hours a day
Daylight14 hours a day16 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
Zurich
4
5
10
15
19
22
24
24
19
14
8
4
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Zurich
62
60
71
80
126
128
126
119
87
85
76
84
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Zurich
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Zurich
2
3
5
6
6
7
7
7
5
3
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Zurich: 1991-2020 normals, Zurich Town / Ville. (2.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoZurich
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
1 h 35 m
€110-163
ZRH · 9 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
2 h 45 m
€110-133
ZRH · 9 km
JeddahJED
2 h 5 m
€158-202
CAI · 17 km
5 h 20 m
no fares
ZRH · 9 km
Kuwait CityKWI
2 h 35 m
€137-145
CAI · 17 km
5 h 20 m
no fares
ZRH · 9 km
BerlinBER
4 h 5 m
€210-279
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
1 h 25 m
€140-176
ZRH · 9 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
1 h 15 m
€163-196
ZRH · 9 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
55 m
no fares
ZRH · 9 km
RiyadhRUH
2 h 35 m
€154-163
CAI · 17 km
5 h 35 m
no fares
ZRH · 9 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
3 h 30 m
€262-290
CAI · 17 km
6 h 15 m
€232-366
1 stop
ZRH · 9 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
8 h 5 m
€606-782
1 stop
ZRH · 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

MeasureCairoZurich
Official languageArabicFrench, German, Italian, Romansh
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Swiss Franc (CHF)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzCJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112
Elevation23 m408 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsZürich Airport (ZRH)9 km from centre226 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoZurich
City population9,801,536452,421
People per km²18,5645,147
Museums within 10 km4863
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21

Where else could you go?

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