VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

Huatulco 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 Huatulco for

  • prices
  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Montego Bay for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • 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. Huatulco 86, Montego Bay 84: Huatulco leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Montego Bay 28: Montego Bay leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Montego Bay 42: Montego Bay leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Montego Bay 65: Huatulco leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Montego Bay 50: Montego Bay leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Montego Bay 48: Huatulco leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, Montego Bay 20: Huatulco leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Montego Bay 25: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Montego Bay 38: Huatulco leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Montego Bay 32: Montego Bay leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Montego Bay 45: Huatulco leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Montego Bay.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Huatulco
43match

Wins on prices and getting around with your weighting.

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Huatulco in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
156 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoMontego Bay

Where the figures come from

Huatulco's temperatures are measured 42 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Huatulco's station stands 177 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Huatulco 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. Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre). Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoMontego Bay
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation220 m19 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoMontego Bay
City population7,409123,994
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 Huatulco 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.