VacationSelector
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Chiang Mai 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 Chiang Mai for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Chiang Mai’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. Chiang Mai 6, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 72 points.
Food & drink. Chiang Mai 78, Ocho Rios 42: Chiang Mai leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Chiang Mai 65, Ocho Rios 16: Chiang Mai leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Chiang Mai 45, Ocho Rios 28: Chiang Mai leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chiang Mai 73, Ocho Rios 72: Chiang Mai leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Chiang Mai 48, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Chiang Mai 55, Ocho Rios 60: Ocho Rios leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Chiang Mai 38, Ocho Rios 24: Chiang Mai leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Chiang Mai 62, Ocho Rios 26: Chiang Mai leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Chiang Mai 90, Ocho Rios 42: Chiang Mai leads by 48 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chiang Mai 30, Ocho Rios 14: Chiang Mai leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chiang Mai 82, Ocho Rios 50: Chiang Mai leads by 32 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chiang Mai and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Chiang Mai
Best match
56match

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.

Chiang Mai in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
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
Chiang MaiOcho 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. Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureChiang MaiOcho Rios
Official languageThaiEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyBaht (THB)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-5
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation310 m59 m
Main airportChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-10 days

By the numbers

MeasureChiang MaiOcho Rios
City population1,198,00016,671
People per km²2,958-
Museums within 10 km60
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Chiang Mai 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). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.