Montego Bay or Kingston?

The gap here is wide. Kingston sits on a working harbour, so swimming means a boat to the Lime Cay sandbar or the drive to Hellshire, a crowded beach better known for fried fish than for lying on the sand. Here a beach day is an outing, not the base of the trip.

Montego Bay puts the sea on your doorstep. Doctor's Cave Beach on the Hip Strip has pale sand and clear water inside the reef, the resorts at Rose Hall and Ironshore have sheltered sand of their own, and Negril's Seven Mile Beach is close enough for a full day out.

Both cities cook the same island dishes: jerk smoked over pimento wood, patties, ackee and saltfish and curry goat. The difference is how you find them. Kingston gives you more of the everyday local table, with lunch counters, roadside oil-drum grills, the produce of Coronation Market, fried fish at Hellshire and a few modern Caribbean kitchens uptown.

In Montego Bay the best meals come from jerk pits and beach fish shacks. Many visitors on all-inclusive stays eat mostly at resort buffets, though, and there is little good dining outside the hotels.

Kingston has the stronger set of sights, and they tell the story of modern Jamaica: the Bob Marley Museum on Hope Road, Trench Town Culture Yard, the National Gallery on the waterfront and Port Royal, the old pirate town. Together they fill two or three days.

Montego Bay's heritage is plantation history, seen at the Rose Hall and Greenwood great houses, plus Sam Sharpe Square with its memorial to the 1831 rebellion. There is no major museum, so it all fits into a morning or two.

Kingston is where dancehall comes from. Its weeknight street parties set up sound systems in neighbourhood lanes and run until dawn, and new dance styles start there. Uptown, New Kingston and Barbican add rum bars and lounges. The catch is that the best nights are hard to find without a local guide.

In Montego Bay, evenings centre on the open-air bars of the Hip Strip, full of visitors and cruise passengers. Livelier local street dances happen at weekends, but many resort guests never leave the hotel bar.

Kingston's draw is the mountains. The Blue Mountains rise from the edge of the city to Blue Mountain Peak at 2,256m. You can climb through the night to see the sunrise, and on the way pass cloud forest, coffee terraces and birds found nowhere else.

Montego Bay's outdoors are mostly on or near the water. There is reef snorkelling and diving in the marine park, rafting on the Martha Brae and hummingbirds that feed from your hand at Rocklands. Cockpit Country's caves suit walkers with a guide, but there are no high mountains close by.

Both offer a modest choice of trips, limited by slow roads, but the trips are of different kinds. From Kingston the outings are historic and close: Spanish Town's Georgian square, Port Royal at the end of the Palisadoes and coffee estate tours in the hills, with Port Antonio a longer run east.

From Montego Bay the trips run along the coast and inland. Falmouth's Georgian streets are forty minutes away, Negril has cliffs and sunsets, and tour buses make full days out to Bob Marley's birthplace at Nine Mile and the Appleton rum estate.

Montego Bay is the easier choice with children, as long as the family stays at a resort. Kids' clubs, waterslides and the warm shallows inside the reef fill the days, and glass-bottom boats and river rafting make good outings.

Kingston has less to offer families: Hope Zoo and Hope Gardens, ice cream on the Devon House lawns and the boat to Lime Cay. Beyond those, the heat, traffic and missing pavements keep families in the car.

Both are hard to get around without a car, but in different ways. Kingston is a wide sprawl where New Kingston, the Hope Road museums, downtown, the mountains and Port Royal all lie far apart, so most visitors use ride-hailing or hire a driver for the day.

Montego Bay is simpler at first. The airport is next to the Hip Strip and the strip itself can be walked, but the resorts stretch for kilometres along the coast, so you depend on hotel shuttles, tourist taxis and tour buses.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Kingston has more worth taking home. There is vinyl from the downtown record shops where reggae was pressed, Jamaican-made gifts in the Devon House courtyards and a craft market on the waterfront, plus plain malls in New Kingston.

Montego Bay's shopping is aimed at visitors. You haggle at the Harbour Street craft market and find duty-free jewellery and watches near the cruise port. In both cities, coffee, rum and jerk seasoning are the best things to buy.

Kingston is a little easier on the budget. Its hotels are priced for business travellers and taxis and drivers add up, but a simple guesthouse and meals at jerk stands and cookshops keep costs moderate.

Montego Bay is built around resorts priced for North American visitors, and its tourist taxis and excursions cost to match. That is why an all-inclusive package often turns out to be the more predictable choice. Eating at roadside pits and beach shacks is the main way to save.

Kingston is far ahead here. Ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub were born in the city, roots and dub sessions still run every week in the hills and yards, and the Orange Street studios hold the music's history. On top of that come the National Dance Theatre Company, the national pantomime at the Little Theatre and the Ward Theatre.

Montego Bay has one big moment, Reggae Sumfest each summer. For the rest of the year, live music means cover bands on the Hip Strip and resort shows.

Montego Bay is the better place to unwind, as long as you choose your hotel well. It has open-air spa pavilions by the sea, adults-only resorts built for quiet and massages on the sand.

Kingston itself is loud and hot. It does have a bathing tradition that Montego Bay lacks: the simple Rockfort Mineral Bath on the city's edge and the old hot springs at Bath. The small retreats in the Blue Mountains also offer cool air and quiet above the city.