Montego Bay or Ocho Rios?

Both have warm, calm water inside the reef, but Montego Bay has slightly better town beaches. Doctor's Cave on the Hip Strip has drawn bathers for more than a century. Cornwall and Dead End beaches are close by, the resorts at Rose Hall and Ironshore have sheltered sand, and Negril's Seven Mile Beach makes a full day out.

The beaches in Ocho Rios are just as small and less well known. Turtle Beach is next to the cruise pier, Mahogany Beach is tiny, and Reggae Beach and James Bond Beach are a short drive east. Some public beaches charge an entry fee, so in practice most days are spent on the resort's own strip of sand.

Both serve the same island cooking, with jerk smoked over pimento wood, patties and ackee and saltfish. Montego Bay has a little more beyond that, with escovitch fish and bammy at the beach shacks and a few restaurants and large hotel dining rooms for a proper dinner out.

In Ocho Rios, the best food is at the jerk centres and cookshops along the coast road towards St Ann's Bay. The sit-down restaurants in town mostly serve a tourist version of the menu.

Neither town is a culture destination, but Montego Bay has more to see. The Rose Hall and Greenwood great houses, Sam Sharpe Square with the old Cage lock-up and the Georgian parish church will fill a day. Falmouth's well-preserved streets are forty minutes along the coast.

Ocho Rios grew up as a resort and cruise port and has little history of its own to show. The one real sight is Seville Heritage Park near St Ann's Bay, on the site of the first Spanish settlement on the island, with displays on Taino, Spanish and African history.

Montego Bay has livelier evenings mainly because it has somewhere to go. Along Gloucester Avenue, the Hip Strip, the open-air bars and beach party spots fill with visitors and some stay open into the small hours. At weekends there are local street dances with dancehall sound systems.

Ocho Rios has no strip to wander, so most nights mean the resort bar and its theme nights. A few beach bars and open-air clubs in town, and the odd weekend street dance, liven things up, but weeknights are often quiet.

Montego Bay is at its best on the water. Its marine park protects reefs and seagrass beds, and catamarans and glass-bottom boats cross the bay. Inland there are bamboo rafts on the Martha Brae, hand-fed hummingbirds at Rocklands and guided walks into Cockpit Country.

Ocho Rios has more within easy reach, because the rivers that give the town its name run down to the coast around it. The guided climb up Dunn's River Falls, the wilder Blue Hole pools, the tree-fern tunnel of Fern Gully and tubing on the White River are all close by. From Montego Bay, Dunn's River Falls is a long day out.

From Montego Bay, the easy trips are to Falmouth, forty minutes east, and to Negril's cliffs and sunsets, about an hour and a half west. Nine Mile and the Appleton rum estate take a full day by tour bus.

Ocho Rios reaches more of the island from the middle of the north coast. Noël Coward's hilltop home at Firefly is close, Nine Mile is a similar drive inland, and the road over the mountains puts Kingston, with the Bob Marley Museum and Devon House, about an hour and a half away. From either town the roads are slow and winding, so plan on a driver or an organised tour.

In both towns, a family vacation means a resort with a kids' club and calm, warm water in front of it, with little in town built for children. Montego Bay's outings are gentle ones, such as glass-bottom boats, river rafting and feeding the hummingbirds at Rocklands, which suit small children well.

Ocho Rios gives families more to do, especially with older children. They can climb Dunn's River Falls hand in hand with a guide, ride the rainforest bobsled and canopy lines, go tubing on the river and swim with dolphins at a marine park.

Getting around is hard work in both towns. The resorts are spread along the coast, pavements are patchy, the route taxis are confusing for visitors, and driving is on the left on busy roads.

The difference is in arriving and in the town centre. Montego Bay's airport is right beside the Hip Strip, while Ocho Rios usually means a long transfer along the coast. Once you are there, though, Ocho Rios has a compact centre, even if the traffic and drivers touting for business make walking it more effort than it should be.

Shopping is a minor part of a trip to either town and is mostly aimed at cruise passengers. Montego Bay has the Harbour Street craft market and duty-free shops near the port and in the larger shopping centres. Ocho Rios has a small shopping village by its pier and a town craft market selling Rasta-coloured textiles and hand-made jewellery. In both, coffee, rum and jerk seasoning or hot sauce are the things worth taking home.

Neither town is cheap. All-inclusive resorts priced for visitors from abroad dominate both, and taxis and tours are charged at tourist rates. In either place you save by eating at roadside jerk stands and staying in small guesthouses away from the beachfront: inland from Montego Bay, or up in the hills above Ocho Rios. Because so much outside the hotel is priced for tourists, an all-inclusive package is often the most predictable way to budget in both.

Montego Bay has Reggae Sumfest, one of the best-known reggae festivals in the world, which fills the town with big stage shows each summer. For the rest of the year, live music means cover bands on the Hip Strip and in resort lounges.

Ocho Rios has no festival on that scale. Live music there means resort reggae bands and folk dancing and drumming shows for guests, with the occasional dancehall stage show in town at weekends. Neither town has theatre or classical music to speak of.

In both towns, relaxation happens behind the hotel gates, at resort spas with treatments in open-air pavilions. Montego Bay has many adults-only resorts built for quiet, and massages are offered on the beach. Ocho Rios has spas on cliffs and in gardens above the sea, but its centre is crowded and loud on cruise days, so it is best avoided then. Neither has thermal baths within an easy trip.