VacationSelector
The Plaza de Armas with the cathedral and La Compañía, Cusco
CuscoThe Plaza de Armas with the cathedral and La Compañía
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Cusco by Pedro Szekely, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cusco 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 Cusco for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • shopping

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • beaches
  • families
  • 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. Cusco 3, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Cusco 56, Ocho Rios 42: Cusco leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Cusco 81, Ocho Rios 16: Cusco leads by 65 points.
Nightlife. Cusco 42, Ocho Rios 28: Cusco leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cusco 86, Ocho Rios 72: Cusco leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cusco 78, Ocho Rios 56: Cusco leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Cusco 10, Ocho Rios 60: Ocho Rios leads by 50 points.
Getting around. Cusco 48, Ocho Rios 24: Cusco leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Cusco 52, Ocho Rios 26: Cusco leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Cusco 73, Ocho Rios 42: Cusco leads by 31 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cusco 30, Ocho Rios 14: Cusco leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cusco 33, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 17 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cusco and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Cusco
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cusco in July

20 °Cdaytime high
1 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 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
CuscoOcho Rios

Where the figures come from

Cusco's station stands 151 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

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. Cusco: 1991-2020 normals, Cuzco (3.7 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCuscoOcho Rios
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencySol (PEN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5
Emergency number111 or 911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation3,399 m59 m
Main airportAlejandro Velasco Astete International Airport (CUZ)5 km from centre6 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCuscoOcho Rios
City population428,45016,671
Museums within 10 km110
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 Cusco 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). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.