VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

Akumal or Montego Bay?

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 Akumal for

  • families
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Montego Bay for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Montego Bay’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. Akumal 88, Montego Bay 84: Akumal leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Montego Bay 28: Montego Bay leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Montego Bay 42: Montego Bay leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Montego Bay 65: Akumal leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Montego Bay 50: Akumal leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Montego Bay 48: Akumal leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Montego Bay 20: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Montego Bay 25: Montego Bay leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Montego Bay 38: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Montego Bay 32: Montego Bay leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Montego Bay 45: Akumal leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Akumal and Montego Bay.

Your match

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

Akumal
39match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Montego Bay
Best match
44match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Akumal in July

30 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
119 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Montego Bay in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
75 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalMontego Bay

Where the figures come from

Akumal has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Akumal: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalMontego Bay
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation11 m19 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalMontego Bay
City population2,154123,994
Museums within 10 km00
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 Akumal or Montego Bay somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.