VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Arequipa 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 Arequipa for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • getting around

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • families

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. Arequipa 8, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 70 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Ocho Rios 42: Arequipa leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Ocho Rios 16: Arequipa leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Ocho Rios 28: Arequipa leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Ocho Rios 72: Arequipa leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Ocho Rios 60: Ocho Rios leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Ocho Rios 24: Arequipa leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa 44, Ocho Rios 26: Arequipa leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Ocho Rios 42: Arequipa leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Ocho Rios 14: Arequipa leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Arequipa and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Arequipa
Best match
46match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Arequipa in July

21 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 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
ArequipaOcho Rios

Where the figures come from

Arequipa's station stands 203 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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. Arequipa: 1991-2020 normals, Arequipa (9.2 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaOcho Rios
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencySol (PEN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5
Emergency number111 or 911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation2,335 m59 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaOcho Rios
City population1,008,29016,671
People per km²1,551-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Arequipa 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. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.