VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Charleston 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 Charleston for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • shopping

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices
  • 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. Charleston 72, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Ocho Rios 42: Charleston leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Ocho Rios 16: Charleston leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Ocho Rios 28: Charleston leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Ocho Rios 72: Ocho Rios leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Ocho Rios 56: Charleston leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Charleston and Ocho Rios are level on 60.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Ocho Rios 24: Charleston leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Ocho Rios 26: Charleston leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Ocho Rios 14: Charleston leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Charleston
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 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
CharlestonOcho 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. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonOcho Rios
Official language-English, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation6 m59 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonOcho Rios
City population150,22716,671
People per km²532-
Museums within 10 km190
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston 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.