VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Rotorua?

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 Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Montego Bay leads by 51 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Rotorua 33: Montego Bay leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Rotorua 38: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Rotorua 14: Montego Bay leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Rotorua 45: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Rotorua 30: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Rotorua 22: Montego Bay leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Rotorua 36: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Rotorua 30: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 41 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Rotorua.

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 beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayRotorua

Where the figures come from

Rotorua 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). Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayRotorua
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110111
Elevation19 m280 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayRotorua
City population123,99458,500
People per km²-22
Museums within 10 km01
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montego Bay or Rotorua 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.