VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
York Minster from the city walls, York
YorkYork Minster from the city walls

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; York by PAUL FARMER, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Montego Bay or York?

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
  • food and drink

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

Choose York for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on York’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, York 14: Montego Bay leads by 70 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, York 42: Montego Bay leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, York 70: York leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, York 36: Montego Bay leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, York 62: Montego Bay leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, York 80: York leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, York 60: York leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, York 72: York leads by 52 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, York 46: York leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay and York are level on 38.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, York 38: York leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, York 34: Montego Bay leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and York.

Your match

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

Montego Bay
44match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

York
Best match
49match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights 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

York in July

21 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
62 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayYork

Where the figures come from

York 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.

York's sunshine is measured 48 km from the centre, at Leeming.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montego Bay: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (3.7 km from centre). York: 1991-2020 normals, Linton-On-Ouse (14.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayYork
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisEnglish
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110112 or 999
Elevation19 m25 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsLeeds Bradford Airport (LBA)39 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayYork
City population123,994208,400
People per km²-766
Museums within 10 km024
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
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 York 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.