VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Melbourne 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 Melbourne for

  • shopping
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Negril for

  • beaches
  • prices

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. Melbourne 50, Negril 93: Negril leads by 43 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, Negril 36: Melbourne leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, Negril 8: Melbourne leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, Negril 40: Melbourne leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, Negril 60: Melbourne leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, Negril 35: Melbourne leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, Negril 45: Melbourne leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, Negril 30: Melbourne leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, Negril 15: Melbourne leads by 55 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, Negril 44: Negril leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, Negril 33: Melbourne leads by 39 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, Negril 52: Melbourne leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Melbourne and Negril.

Your match

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

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights with your weighting.

Negril
41match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Melbourne in July

14 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 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
MelbourneNegril

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. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMelbourneNegril
Official languageEnglishEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number000Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation31 m10 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbourneNegril
City population5,350,7054,500
People per km²535-
Museums within 10 km430
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Melbourne 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.