VacationSelector
Clearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier, Clearwater
ClearwaterClearwater Beach in evening light, with its hotels and pier
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay

Photos: Clearwater by ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

Clearwater or Montego Bay?

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 Clearwater for

  • families
  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose Montego Bay for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Montego Bay’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. Clearwater 90, Montego Bay 84: Clearwater leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Clearwater 38, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Clearwater 18, Montego Bay 28: Montego Bay leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Clearwater 34, Montego Bay 42: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Clearwater 55, Montego Bay 65: Montego Bay leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Clearwater 58, Montego Bay 50: Clearwater leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Clearwater 78, Montego Bay 48: Clearwater leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Clearwater 28, Montego Bay 20: Clearwater leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Clearwater 27, Montego Bay 25: Clearwater leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Clearwater 35, Montego Bay 38: Montego Bay leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Clearwater 36, Montego Bay 32: Clearwater leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Clearwater 40, Montego Bay 45: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Clearwater and Montego Bay.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Clearwater
45match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Montego Bay
44match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Clearwater in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
188 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Montego Bay in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
75 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
ClearwaterMontego Bay

Where the figures come from

Clearwater 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.

Clearwater's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Clearwater: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg / High Point (12.7 km from centre). Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureClearwaterMontego Bay
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
Elevation9 m19 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)13 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureClearwaterMontego Bay
City population117,292123,994
People per km²1,154-
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Clearwater or Montego Bay 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.