VacationSelector
The beach with the bay and the skyline behind, Acapulco
AcapulcoThe beach with the bay and the skyline behind
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Acapulco by Felicia Navarrete, Pexels License; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Acapulco or Ocho Rios?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Acapulco for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Acapulco’s own page.

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Ocho Rios’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Acapulco 80, Ocho Rios 78: Acapulco leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Acapulco 55, Ocho Rios 42: Acapulco leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Acapulco 28, Ocho Rios 16: Acapulco leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Acapulco 64, Ocho Rios 28: Acapulco leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Acapulco 50, Ocho Rios 72: Ocho Rios leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Acapulco 15, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Acapulco 45, Ocho Rios 60: Ocho Rios leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Acapulco 30, Ocho Rios 24: Acapulco leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Acapulco 32, Ocho Rios 26: Acapulco leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Acapulco 74, Ocho Rios 42: Acapulco leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Acapulco 26, Ocho Rios 14: Acapulco leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Acapulco 32, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Acapulco and Ocho Rios.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Acapulco
44match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Acapulco in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
226 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Ocho Rios in July

33 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
AcapulcoOcho Rios

Where the figures come from

Ocho Rios's temperatures are measured 62 km from the centre, at Kingston / Norman Manley.

Ocho Rios has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Acapulco: 1991-2020 normals, Acapulco, Gro. (5.9 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAcapulcoOcho Rios
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation18 m59 m
Main airportGeneral Juan N. Álvarez International Airport (ACA)18 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureAcapulcoOcho Rios
City population658,60916,671
People per km²350-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Acapulco or Ocho Rios somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.