VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cartagena or Negril?

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 Cartagena for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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

Choose Negril for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Negril’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. Cartagena 70, Negril 93: Negril leads by 23 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Negril 36: Cartagena leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Negril 8: Cartagena leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Negril 40: Cartagena leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Negril 60: Negril leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Negril 35: Negril leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Negril 45: Negril leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Negril 30: Cartagena leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Negril 15: Cartagena leads by 33 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Negril 44: Cartagena leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Negril 33: Cartagena leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Negril 52: Negril leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Negril.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Negril
41match

Wins on beaches 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.

Cartagena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
124 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 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
CartagenaNegril

Where the figures come from

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril 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. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaNegril
Official languageSpanishEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5
Emergency number123Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation2 m10 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaNegril
City population914,5524,500
People per km²1,599-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Cartagena or Negril 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). 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. 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.