VacationSelector
A bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay, Montego Bay
Montego BayA bright beach on turquoise water at Montego Bay
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: Montego Bay by Dre Dawkcide, Pexels License; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

Montego Bay or Zadar?

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 Zadar for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’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, Zadar 72: Montego Bay leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Montego Bay 50, Zadar 45: Montego Bay leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Montego Bay 28, Zadar 55: Zadar leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Montego Bay 42, Zadar 38: Montego Bay leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montego Bay 65, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Montego Bay 50, Zadar 70: Zadar leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Montego Bay 48, Zadar 55: Zadar leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Montego Bay 20, Zadar 58: Zadar leads by 38 points.
Shopping & style. Montego Bay 25, Zadar 27: Zadar leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Montego Bay 38, Zadar 52: Zadar leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montego Bay 32, Zadar 28: Montego Bay leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montego Bay 45, Zadar 35: Montego Bay leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montego Bay and Zadar.

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.

Zadar
Best match
51match

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

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Montego BayZadar

Where the figures come from

Zadar 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). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontego BayZadar
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisCroatian
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110112
Elevation19 m5 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)4 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontego BayZadar
City population123,99470,779
Museums within 10 km01
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montego Bay or Zadar 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.