VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Sayulita?

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
  • nightlife

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

Choose Sayulita for

  • getting around
  • wellness
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Sayulita’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, Sayulita 80: Montego Bay leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Sayulita 42: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Sayulita 7: Montego Bay leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Sayulita 33: Montego Bay leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Sayulita 72: Sayulita leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Sayulita 42: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Sayulita 42: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Sayulita 48: Sayulita leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Sayulita 33: Sayulita leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Sayulita 45: Sayulita leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Sayulita 12: Montego Bay leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Sayulita 58: Sayulita 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 Sayulita.

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.

Sayulita
43match

Wins on getting around and wellness 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

Sayulita in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
342 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BaySayulita

Where the figures come from

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

Before you go

MeasureMontego BaySayulita
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 m2 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BaySayulita
City population123,9943,390
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Sayulita 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.