VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Montego Bay or Petra?

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
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: Montego Bay leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Petra 22: Montego Bay leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Petra 85: Petra leads by 57 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Petra 5: Montego Bay leads by 37 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Petra 78: Petra leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Petra 30: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Petra 25: Montego Bay leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Petra 25: Petra leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Petra 18: Montego Bay leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Petra 45: Petra leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Petra 10: Montego Bay leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Petra 28: Montego Bay leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Petra.

Your match

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

Montego Bay
Best match
44match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors 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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayPetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayPetra
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisArabic
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+3
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation19 m850 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayPetra
City population123,994-
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Petra 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.