VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
The coloured houses stepping down to the sea, Positano
PositanoThe coloured houses stepping down to the sea

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Positano by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Positano?

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

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • families

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

Choose Positano for

  • day trips
  • shopping
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Positano’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, Positano 77: Montego Bay leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Positano 40: Montego Bay leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Positano 22: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Positano 22: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Positano 80: Positano leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Positano 88: Positano leads by 38 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Positano 28: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Positano 35: Positano leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Positano 45: Positano leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Positano 10: Montego Bay leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Positano 15: Montego Bay leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay and Positano are level on 45.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Positano.

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 prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Positano
42match

Wins on day trips 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

Positano in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayPositano

Where the figures come from

Positano's temperatures are measured 25 km from the centre, at Capri.

Positano 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.

Positano's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre). Positano: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Capri (25.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayPositano
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisItalian
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110112
Elevation19 m142 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)33 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayPositano
City population123,9943,729
People per km²-429
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montego Bay or Positano 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.