VacationSelector
Cocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols, Cocoa Beach
Cocoa BeachCocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay

Photos: Cocoa Beach by Benoît Prieur, CC0; Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

Cocoa Beach 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 Cocoa Beach for

  • families
  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose Montego Bay for

  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

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. Cocoa Beach 80, Montego Bay 84: Montego Bay leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Cocoa Beach 32, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Cocoa Beach 12, Montego Bay 28: Montego Bay leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Cocoa Beach 27, Montego Bay 42: Montego Bay leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cocoa Beach 62, Montego Bay 65: Montego Bay leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Cocoa Beach 52, Montego Bay 50: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Cocoa Beach 72, Montego Bay 48: Cocoa Beach leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Cocoa Beach 22, Montego Bay 20: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Cocoa Beach 20, Montego Bay 25: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Cocoa Beach 40, Montego Bay 38: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cocoa Beach 14, Montego Bay 32: Montego Bay leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cocoa Beach 30, Montego Bay 45: Montego Bay leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cocoa Beach and Montego Bay.

Your match

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

Cocoa Beach
39match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Montego Bay
Best match
44match

Wins on food and drink and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cocoa Beach in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
147 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °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
Cocoa BeachMontego Bay

Where the figures come from

Cocoa Beach 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. Cocoa Beach: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cocoa / Patrick Air Force Base (11.2 km from centre). Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCocoa BeachMontego 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
Elevation0 m19 m
Main airportOrlando International Airport (MCO)68 km from centre170 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCocoa BeachMontego Bay
City population11,354123,994
People per km²290-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C11 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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