VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
A painted funicular on the hillside, Valparaiso
ValparaisoA painted funicular on the hillside

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Valparaiso by Maclemo, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or Valparaiso?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Valparaiso for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Valparaiso’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, Valparaiso 36: Montego Bay leads by 48 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay and Valparaiso are level on 50.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Valparaiso 62: Valparaiso leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Valparaiso 56: Valparaiso leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Valparaiso 60: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Valparaiso 63: Valparaiso leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Valparaiso 33: Montego Bay leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Valparaiso 44: Valparaiso leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Valparaiso 30: Valparaiso leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Valparaiso 60: Valparaiso leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Valparaiso 38: Valparaiso leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Valparaiso 18: Montego Bay leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Valparaiso.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Valparaiso
46match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around 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

Valparaiso in July

15 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
71 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayValparaiso

Where the figures come from

Valparaiso 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). Valparaiso: 2010-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Viña Del Mar / Montemar (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayValparaiso
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisSpanish
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation19 m21 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)87 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayValparaiso
City population123,994296,655
People per km²-6,180
Museums within 10 km017
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Valparaiso 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.