VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Tamarindo?

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
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Tamarindo’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, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 1 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Tamarindo 38: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Tamarindo 5: Montego Bay leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Tamarindo 28: Montego Bay leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Tamarindo 55: Tamarindo leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Tamarindo 32: Tamarindo leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Tamarindo 18: Montego Bay leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Tamarindo 36: Montego Bay leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Tamarindo 10: Montego Bay leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay and Tamarindo are level on 45.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Montego Bay
Best match
44match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on getting around 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

Tamarindo in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
129 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Tamarindo's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Liberia.

Tamarindo 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). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayTamarindo
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisSpanish
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation19 m27 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayTamarindo
City population123,9947,132
People per km²-57
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 Tamarindo 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.