Ocho Rios

Ocho Rios is a beach base in the Caribbean sense. The water is warm all year, around 28°C in summer, and the reef close to shore keeps the sea calm and clear enough for easy swimming and snorkelling straight from the sand. Days here tend to revolve around the shore, whether that is a resort's own strip or a public beach.

The beaches themselves are small. Turtle Beach curves along the town's bay, with the cruise pier at one end. Mahogany Beach is a compact local favourite, and Reggae Beach and James Bond Beach at Oracabessa are short drives east. Much of the best sand sits in front of all-inclusive hotels, and some public beaches charge an entry fee. There is no single great sweep of coast, but finding warm, calm water is never a problem.

The best food here comes from the roadside. Jerk chicken and pork smoke over pimento wood in oil-drum grills, and you also find patties, fried fish with festival dumplings, ackee and saltfish at breakfast, and fresh coconut cut open at the kerb. The jerk centres and cookshops along the main road and the coast toward St Ann's Bay are where locals eat, and they are worth leaving the hotel for.

Beyond that, the range is narrow. Many visitors stay on all-inclusive plans, and the sit-down restaurants in town mostly serve a tourist version of Caribbean and international cooking. Rum and Blue Mountain coffee are the drinks to look for. Fine dining is limited to a few upmarket hotel dining rooms.

Ocho Rios grew up as a resort and cruise port, and the town has little historic architecture or museum culture of its own. The most interesting site is Seville Heritage Park, just west near St Ann's Bay. It sits on the site of the first Spanish settlement on the island and has a great house and displays on Taino, Spanish and African history. A few old plantation houses in the hills give a sense of the colonial past. Visitors who want Jamaican history in depth need to travel further afield.

Most evenings here are spent at the hotel. All-inclusive resorts run their own bars, theme nights and entertainment, and many guests never leave. In town, a handful of beach bars and open-air clubs play reggae and dancehall, and on some weekend nights there are street dances with big sound systems that lean local rather than touristy. It can be fun, but the scene is small and depends on the night. Quiet weeknights are common, there is no district to wander between bars, and getting back usually means a taxi. Visitors who want going out to be a central part of their trip will find it thin.

This stretch of coast is the 'eight rivers' of the town's name. Water runs down from the limestone hills behind it, and the landscape is lush and wet. The best-known walk is the climb up the terraced cascades of Dunn's River Falls, hand in hand with a guide. Inland, the Blue Hole pools and waterfalls are wilder. Fern Gully is a road through a tunnel of tree ferns in an old riverbed.

Other options are tubing and rafting on the White River, a chairlift and zipline through rainforest canopy in the hills, horse rides into the sea, and snorkelling and diving on the reefs offshore. Hiking is mostly short and guided, and the Blue Mountains are too far for an easy day. It is a green, active place, but small in scale.

Ocho Rios sits midway along the north coast, so a lot of the island is within reach. Firefly, Noël Coward's hilltop home above Port Maria, is about forty minutes east. Nine Mile, the village where Bob Marley was born and is buried, is about an hour and a half up winding inland roads. To the west, Falmouth's Georgian streets and the great houses around Montego Bay make a full day out.

The highway over the mountains puts Kingston about an hour and a half away, with the Bob Marley Museum, Devon House and the capital's galleries. Port Antonio is about two hours along the coast. Most of these trips mean a driver or a tour rather than public transport.

For a beach vacation with children, Ocho Rios works well, as long as the family is happy to base itself at a resort. The sea is warm and mostly calm, and many all-inclusives have kids' clubs, shallow pools and family rooms. Days out are well suited to older children: climbing Dunn's River Falls, swimming with dolphins at a marine park, the rainforest bobsled and canopy rides, and river tubing.

The town itself is harder going. Vendors can be persistent, pavements are patchy, and there are few parks or playgrounds. Every outing means a taxi or a tour. Younger children will spend most of their time at the hotel, which suits many families well enough.

The town centre is compact, but busy traffic, narrow or missing pavements and constant offers from drivers and vendors make walking more effort than it should be. Resorts are spread along the coast on either side. Shared route taxis run the main roads cheaply and locals use them, but they are informal and confusing for a first-time visitor. Most travellers rely on licensed tourist taxis, hotel transfers and tour pick-ups. Driving yourself is possible, but it means driving on the left on twisting, busy roads.

Shopping in Ocho Rios mostly follows the cruise ships. Near the pier there is a small shopping village and a row of duty-free stores selling jewellery, watches and liquor. The craft market in town has wood carvings, paintings, Rasta-coloured textiles and hand-made jewellery, with bargaining expected and sellers keen. Rum, Blue Mountain coffee and local hot sauces are the souvenirs worth carrying home. Beyond that, there is little in the way of fashion, design or a proper market.

Ocho Rios costs more than many travellers expect from the Caribbean. All-inclusive resorts dominate the accommodation, and the good ones are priced to match. Attractions and tours are charged at tourist rates, and restaurants aimed at visitors are not cheap. Imported goods cost more on the island too. Eating at roadside jerk stands and cookshops and using route taxis brings costs down a lot, and small guesthouses in the hills are far cheaper than the beachfront. Even so, a typical stay here is a mid-range expense, not a budget one.

There is no theatre, concert hall or regular programme here. Live music mostly means reggae bands and cultural shows at the resorts, with folk dancing and drumming put on for guests, plus occasional dancehall stage shows in town on weekends and public festivals. Hearing reggae played live in Jamaica has its own pull, and a good resort band can make for a pleasant evening. But the island's big concerts and music festivals take place elsewhere, so visitors who care about live performance will need to travel for it or plan their vacation around a specific event.

Wellness in Ocho Rios happens at the resorts. The larger hotels and the smaller upmarket ones along the coast have spas offering massages and treatments. Some are set in open-air pavilions on cliffs or among gardens above the sea, which makes them more pleasant than a basement spa. Jamaica does have old mineral baths, but they lie on the south and east of the island, well beyond an easy outing, and nothing comparable exists around the town.

What the town does offer is a slow pace once you are behind the hotel gates: long mornings, hammocks and early nights. On cruise days the town centre is crowded and loud, so most visitors simply stay away from it.