VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
Palm Springs

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License.

Montego Bay or Palm Springs?

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 Montego Bay for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • food and drink

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • wellness
  • shopping
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm Springs’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. Montego Bay 84, Palm Springs 7: Montego Bay leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Palm Springs 40: Montego Bay leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Palm Springs 42: Palm Springs leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Palm Springs 36: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Palm Springs 38: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Palm Springs 40: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Palm Springs 22: Palm Springs leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Palm Springs 44: Palm Springs leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Palm Springs 32: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 35 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on wellness and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Montego Bay in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
75 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Palm Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayPalm Springs

Where the figures come from

Palm Springs 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. Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre). Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayPalm Springs
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation19 m146 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayPalm Springs
City population123,99444,575
People per km²-181
Museums within 10 km03
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montego Bay or Palm Springs somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.