Negril or Montego Bay?

Both towns have the same warm, clear water inside the reef, but Negril has the better shoreline. Seven Mile Beach is a long, open sweep of soft sand that slopes gently into flat sea. Quieter Bloody Bay lies to the north, and the West End offers cliff jumping and ladder swims in deep turquoise water.

Montego Bay's beaches are short curves rather than long walks. Doctor's Cave Beach on the Hip Strip is the classic, Cornwall and Dead End Beach are close by, and the resorts at Rose Hall and Ironshore have their own sheltered sand. Plenty of Montego Bay visitors make the long drive west to Negril for a proper beach day, which says a lot.

The Jamaican basics are the same in both: jerk smoked over pimento wood, patties, ackee and saltfish, escovitch fish and rum punch. Montego Bay adds a little more range, with bakeries, a handful of restaurants and hotel dining rooms that aim higher, and Blue Mountain coffee is easy to find.

Negril's eating is simpler and almost entirely casual. The highlights are fish and lobster grilled at beach shacks, cookshops along the West End road and Rastafarian ital stalls serving vegetable stews. Away from those, the beach restaurants mostly serve international resort menus.

Montego Bay is far ahead, though it is modest by any wider standard. Rose Hall Great House and its ghost legend, Greenwood with its original furniture and old instruments, Sam Sharpe Square with the Cage lock-up, and the Georgian St James Parish Church make a good day or two. Falmouth, one of the best-preserved Georgian towns in the Caribbean, is close by.

Negril was a fishing village within living memory, and apart from the 1890s lighthouse on the West End cliffs it has no sights. Anyone staying there who wants history ends up driving to the Montego Bay area for it.

Both are small scenes with no real clubs, and they differ in mood. Montego Bay's evenings centre on the Hip Strip's open-air bars, which are often full of cruise passengers. The more local nights are weekend waterfront parties and street dances with sound systems, best visited with someone who knows them.

Negril follows a set routine: sunset and cliff divers on the West End, then back to Seven Mile Beach, where the bars on the sand take turns hosting the party night. It is barefoot and relaxed, and it runs late in winter but goes quiet out of season.

There is little to choose between them overall, but the outdoors means different things in each. Montego Bay's draw lies mostly in the hills behind the coast: bamboo rafting on the Martha Brae, zip lines and horse rides through old estates, hand-feeding hummingbirds at Rocklands, and guided walks into the caves and karst of Cockpit Country. The Marine Park adds reefs and seagrass to snorkel in the bay.

Negril looks to the water. You can snorkel straight off the cliffs, dive the walls and wrecks a short boat ride out, and take kayaks and paddleboards from the beach, while the Great Morass and Royal Palm Reserve lie just behind the sand. It has no mountains and little real hiking, though Mayfield Falls, the Blue Hole and the Black River are within reach.

Montego Bay sits in the middle of the north coast, which gives it more options. Falmouth is under an hour away, Negril and Ocho Rios lie in opposite directions at similar distances, and Nine Mile and the Appleton Estate make full days by tour bus.

From the island's western tip, Negril's outings are longer and fewer. The best of them head to rivers and waterfalls, the small port of Lucea, or south to Black River and the quiet fishing community of Treasure Beach. The great houses mean a long day, and Nine Mile and Ocho Rios are too far for comfort.

Both work for families who stay in a resort and offer little beyond it. Montego Bay's large hotels lean towards waterslides and splash pools, and outings such as glass-bottom boats, river rafting and the hummingbirds at Rocklands go down well with children. Outside the hotel, though, the town's chaotic traffic keeps most families close to base.

Negril's strength is the beach itself, which shelves so gently that small children can paddle safely. Parents should know that some resorts are adults only, the cliff jumping is for strong swimmers, and the open ganja culture on the strip may not suit everyone.

Negril is the easier of the two, because the whole town lies along one road. You can walk the length of Seven Mile Beach on the sand, and route taxis are simple to flag down. The catch is the hot, pavement-free stretch between the beach and the cliffs.

Montego Bay makes arrival quick, with the airport beside the Hip Strip, but its resorts are spread for kilometres along the coast. Visitors find the local route taxis hard to work out, so most rely on tourist taxis with the fare agreed in advance, hotel shuttles and tour buses.

Neither is a place for shopping, but Montego Bay has more of it. As well as the Harbour Street craft market, where haggling is expected, there are duty-free shops by the cruise port and in the larger shopping centres selling jewellery, watches, rum and cigars.

Negril has souvenirs and little else: a craft market near the centre and vendors walking the sand with carvings, beadwork and Rasta-coloured clothing. In both towns the best things to take home are coffee, rum and jerk seasoning or hot sauce.

Neither is cheap, but Negril gives budget travellers more room. The simple guesthouses and cottages on the West End cliffs cost far less than the beach resorts, and the route taxis are easy enough to use that you can avoid tourist fares.

In Montego Bay, most beds are in resorts priced for North American visitors, and excursions and taxis are expensive, so an all-inclusive package is often the more predictable choice. In both towns, eating from roadside jerk pits and patty shops keeps costs well down.

Reggae is the only real offer in either town, and neither has any theatre or classical music. Montego Bay has the bigger moment: Reggae Sumfest takes over the town for a week of large stage shows each summer, while for the rest of the year live music is mostly cover bands in bars and resort lounges.

Negril spreads its music more evenly through the year. Live bands play roots reggae and ska on beach stages most nights, and established Jamaican artists often appear in winter.

Negril is the more restful of the two, mostly because of its slow pace. The West End has small cliff-top retreats with yoga decks over the sea, open-air massage huts and quiet garden cottages, although touts can disturb the peace along the middle of the beach.

In Montego Bay, relaxation is something the hotel provides. Spas in seaside pavilions and adults-only resorts along the coast offer plenty of quiet, but step outside and the town is noisy and busy.