VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
The top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Vail?

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
  • prices
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Vail for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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, Vail 5: Montego Bay leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Vail 35: Montego Bay leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Vail 10: Montego Bay leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Vail 30: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Vail 92: Vail leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Vail 45: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Vail 55: Vail leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Vail 62: Vail leads by 42 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Vail 35: Vail leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Vail 5: Montego Bay leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Vail 42: Vail leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Vail 48: Vail leads by 3 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Vail.

Your match

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

Montego Bay
Best match
44match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Vail
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

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayVail

Where the figures come from

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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). Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayVail
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 m2,445 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayVail
City population123,9944,835
People per km²-400
Museums within 10 km01
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 Vail 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.