VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Santa Fe?

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
  • prices

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

Choose Santa Fe for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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, Santa Fe 5: Montego Bay leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Santa Fe 22: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Santa Fe 45: Montego Bay leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 37 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Santa Fe 30: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Santa Fe
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BaySanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BaySanta Fe
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation19 m2,134 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BaySanta Fe
City population123,99487,505
People per km²-645
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Santa Fe 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.