VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Akumal 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 Akumal for

  • day trips
  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • food and drink

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. Akumal 88, Ocho Rios 78: Akumal leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Ocho Rios 16: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Ocho Rios 28: Ocho Rios leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Ocho Rios 72: Akumal leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Ocho Rios 56: Akumal leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Ocho Rios 60: Akumal leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Ocho Rios 24: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Ocho Rios 26: Ocho Rios leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Ocho Rios 14: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Ocho Rios 50: Akumal leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Akumal and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Akumal
39match

Wins on day trips and beaches with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
Best match
42match

Wins on nightlife and shopping 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

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
AkumalOcho Rios

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.

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. Akumal: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalOcho 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-5UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation11 m59 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalOcho Rios
City population2,15416,671
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 Ocho Rios 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.