VacationSelector
The beach and pier at uShaka, Durban
DurbanThe beach and pier at uShaka
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Durban by Ossewa, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Durban 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 Durban for

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

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • wellness
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Durban 80, Ocho Rios 78: Durban leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Ocho Rios 42: Durban leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Ocho Rios 16: Durban leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Ocho Rios 28: Durban leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Ocho Rios 72: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Durban and Ocho Rios are level on 60.
Getting around. Durban 20, Ocho Rios 24: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Ocho Rios 26: Durban leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Ocho Rios 42: Durban leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Ocho Rios 14: Durban leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Ocho Rios.

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 live music and the arts with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

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

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
DurbanOcho 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. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanOcho Rios
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 m59 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanOcho Rios
City population595,06116,671
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 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.