VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Puerto Escondido?

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

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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, Puerto Escondido 82: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Puerto Escondido 48: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Puerto Escondido 8: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Puerto Escondido 35: Montego Bay leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Puerto Escondido 42: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Puerto Escondido 22: Montego Bay leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Puerto Escondido 12: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on prices and getting around 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

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayPuerto Escondido
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation19 m60 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayPuerto Escondido
City population123,99429,903
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montego Bay or Puerto Escondido 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.