VacationSelector
Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago
ChicagoCloud Gate in Millennium Park
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Chicago by Jesus Toledo, Pexels License; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Chicago 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 Chicago for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • 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. Chicago 50, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Chicago 80, Ocho Rios 42: Chicago leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Chicago 78, Ocho Rios 16: Chicago leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Chicago 77, Ocho Rios 28: Chicago leads by 49 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chicago 48, Ocho Rios 72: Ocho Rios leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Chicago 42, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Chicago 78, Ocho Rios 60: Chicago leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Chicago 72, Ocho Rios 24: Chicago leads by 48 points.
Shopping & style. Chicago 70, Ocho Rios 26: Chicago leads by 44 points.
Affordability. Chicago 33, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chicago 82, Ocho Rios 14: Chicago leads by 68 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chicago 33, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chicago and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Chicago
Best match
62match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

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.

Chicago in July

29 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 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
ChicagoOcho 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. Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureChicagoOcho Rios
Official language-English, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation179 m59 m
Main airportChicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre274 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureChicagoOcho Rios
City population2,746,38816,671
People per km²4,529-
Museums within 10 km440
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month12 months

Where else could you go?

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