VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

El Nido 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 El Nido for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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

Choose Montego Bay for

  • day trips
  • 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. El Nido 92, Montego Bay 84: El Nido leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Montego Bay 28: Montego Bay leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Montego Bay 42: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Montego Bay 65: El Nido leads by 22 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 42 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Montego Bay 48: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Montego Bay 20: El Nido leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Montego Bay 25: Montego Bay leads by 18 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Montego Bay 38: El Nido leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Montego Bay 32: Montego Bay leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Montego Bay 45: El Nido leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Montego Bay.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Montego Bay
Best match
44match

Wins on day trips 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.

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 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

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoMontego Bay

Where the figures come from

El Nido has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoMontego Bay
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation35 m19 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoMontego Bay
City population51,367123,994
People per km²56-
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 El Nido or Montego Bay somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.