VacationSelector
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach

Photos: Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License; Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Laguna Beach or Negril?

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 Laguna Beach for

  • day trips
  • shopping
  • families

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

Choose Negril for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Negril’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. Laguna Beach 72, Negril 93: Negril leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Laguna Beach 40, Negril 36: Laguna Beach leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Laguna Beach 27, Negril 8: Laguna Beach leads by 19 points.
Nightlife. Laguna Beach 18, Negril 40: Negril leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Laguna Beach 73, Negril 60: Laguna Beach leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Laguna Beach 72, Negril 35: Laguna Beach leads by 37 points.
Good for families. Laguna Beach 68, Negril 45: Laguna Beach leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Laguna Beach 33, Negril 30: Laguna Beach leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Laguna Beach 46, Negril 15: Laguna Beach leads by 31 points.
Affordability. Laguna Beach 12, Negril 44: Negril leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Laguna Beach 40, Negril 33: Laguna Beach leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Laguna Beach 47, Negril 52: Negril leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Laguna Beach and Negril.

Your match

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

Laguna Beach
Best match
46match

Wins on day trips and shopping with your weighting.

Negril
41match

Wins on prices 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.

Laguna Beach in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Laguna BeachNegril

Where the figures come from

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril 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. Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre). Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLaguna BeachNegril
Official language-English, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation6 m10 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureLaguna BeachNegril
City population23,0324,500
People per km²907-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Laguna Beach or Negril 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. 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.