VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped.

Montego Bay or Rio de Janeiro?

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

  • wellness

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

Choose Rio de Janeiro for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’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, Rio de Janeiro 92: Rio de Janeiro leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Rio de Janeiro 62: Rio de Janeiro leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Rio de Janeiro 68: Rio de Janeiro leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Rio de Janeiro 80: Rio de Janeiro leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Rio de Janeiro 90: Rio de Janeiro leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay and Rio de Janeiro are level on 50.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Rio de Janeiro 44: Rio de Janeiro leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Rio de Janeiro 60: Rio de Janeiro leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Rio de Janeiro 66: Rio de Janeiro leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Rio de Janeiro 30: Montego Bay leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Rio de Janeiro.

Your match

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

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on wellness with your weighting.

Rio de Janeiro
Best match
62match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife 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

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayRio de Janeiro

Where the figures come from

Rio de Janeiro has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayRio de Janeiro
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisPortuguese
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-3
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation19 m31 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayRio de Janeiro
City population123,9946,211,223
People per km²-4,930
Museums within 10 km069
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
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 Rio de Janeiro 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.