VacationSelector
Durban
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

Durban 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 Durban for

  • prices
  • shopping
  • families

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

Choose Montego Bay for

  • wellness
  • day trips
  • beaches

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. Durban 80, Montego Bay 84: Montego Bay leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Montego Bay 50: Durban leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Montego Bay 28: Durban leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Montego Bay 42: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Montego Bay 65: Durban leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Montego Bay 48: Durban leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Durban and Montego Bay are level on 20.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Montego Bay 25: Durban leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Montego Bay 38: Durban leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Montego Bay 32: Durban leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 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: Durban and Montego Bay.

Your match

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

Durban
Best match
49match

Wins on prices and shopping with your weighting.

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on wellness 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.

Durban in July

23 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
44 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
22 °Csea
10 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

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanMontego Bay

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanMontego Bay
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-5
Emergency number112Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation22 m19 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanMontego Bay
City population595,061123,994
People per km²2,634-
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Durban 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.