Negril or Ocho Rios?

Both are true beach towns with warm, calm, clear water, but Negril has the bigger and better shoreline. Seven Mile Beach is one long, unbroken curve of soft pale sand that shelves gently enough to swim far out, and the cliffs of the West End add deep-water swimming off ladders and rock ledges.

Ocho Rios has nothing on that scale. Its beaches are small bays such as Turtle Beach beside the cruise pier and Mahogany Beach, much of the best sand belongs to the all-inclusives, and some public beaches charge to get in. The reef close to shore does make snorkelling straight from the sand easy.

Much the same island cooking is found in both: jerk from oil-drum grills, ackee and saltfish, patties and fried fish, with resort menus filling the gaps. Ocho Rios edges ahead because of the jerk centres and cookshops along the main road towards St Ann's Bay, where locals eat and visitors are rewarded for leaving the hotel, plus Blue Mountain coffee to go with the rum.

Negril's best meals are more casual and closer to the water: fish and lobster grilled at beach shacks, cookshops on the West End road and Rastafarian ital stalls with vegetable stews.

Neither town is a place for sights, but Ocho Rios at least has Seville Heritage Park nearby, on the site of the island's first Spanish settlement, with a great house and displays on Taino, Spanish and African history, plus old plantation houses in the hills. Negril grew from a fishing village into a resort, and the 1890s lighthouse on the West End cliffs is its one landmark, so history means a long drive out.

Negril is the livelier of the two after dark. The evening starts with the sunset and cliff divers on the West End, then moves to Seven Mile Beach, where bars on the sand take turns hosting party nights, so there is usually somewhere busy, and in winter the busiest nights go on past midnight.

Ocho Rios goes out less. Most guests stay inside their resort for theme nights and hotel bars, and the town has only a few beach bars and open-air clubs, with weekend street dances the most local thing on offer. With no strip to wander, a night out there usually means a taxi.

Ocho Rios has the richer landscape. Rivers run down from limestone hills through lush forest, giving the guided climb up Dunn's River Falls, the wilder Blue Hole pools, the fern tunnel of Fern Gully, tubing on the White River and canopy rides in the hills, with reefs offshore as well.

Negril's natural life is mostly the sea: a fringing reef with snorkelling off the West End cliffs, dive walls and wrecks, and sunsets from the rocks. Behind the beach, the Great Morass and the Royal Palm Reserve offer birdlife, but the waterfalls and the Black River mangroves are an hour or two's drive away.

Ocho Rios sits in the middle of the north coast, and it shows. Firefly is about forty minutes away, Nine Mile and Kingston, with the Bob Marley Museum and Devon House, are each about an hour and a half off, and Falmouth and Port Antonio make full days out.

From Negril, the slow coastal roads stretch everything out. Lucea, Black River, Treasure Beach and the Appleton Estate distillery are within range, but Montego Bay's great houses make a long day, and Nine Mile and Ocho Rios are too far to do comfortably and come back.

Ocho Rios gives children more to do. Its family resorts come with kids' clubs and shallow pools, and older children can climb Dunn's River Falls, swim with dolphins, ride the rainforest bobsled and go tubing, although the town itself has few playgrounds and every outing needs a taxi.

Negril's strength is the beach itself, whose gentle slope and flat water suit small swimmers better than anywhere in Ocho Rios. Beyond that and a few boat and waterfall trips, there is little, and the vendors and open ganja culture along the strip put some parents off.

Both towns depend on route taxis, private drivers and tours, and in both, driving means narrow roads and keeping left. Negril is slightly easier on foot because Seven Mile Beach doubles as a walkway, and the single road makes route taxis simple to follow, though reaching the cliffs is a long, hot walk. In Ocho Rios the resorts are scattered along the coast, and the compact centre is tiring to walk because of traffic, patchy pavements and persistent drivers.

Neither is a shopping trip, but Ocho Rios has a little more. Near its cruise pier there is a small shopping village and a row of duty-free stores selling jewellery, watches and liquor, on top of a craft market where bargaining is expected. Negril's shopping is all souvenirs, from a craft market near the roundabout and vendors on the sand. In both, rum, coffee and hot sauce are the buys worth carrying home.

The two cost about the same, and both reward the same tactics: jerk stands, patty shops and route taxis instead of resort restaurants and private cars. Where they differ is in what the cheaper beds are like. Negril's lie on the West End cliffs, close to the sea and suited to backpackers, while in Ocho Rios they are guesthouses in the hills, away from a coast dominated by all-inclusives.

Negril has far more live music, with reggae bands playing on beach stages and at the West End most nights, and well-known Jamaican artists turning up in winter, alongside sound systems and dancehall. In Ocho Rios, live music mostly means resort bands and folk shows staged for guests, with the occasional weekend dancehall show in town. Neither has a theatre or concert hall.

Both are good for slowing down, with comparable resort spas and massages, but the calm comes from different places. Negril's is spread along the West End, where small cliff-top retreats have yoga decks over the water and massage huts open to the air.

In Ocho Rios the quiet is mostly found behind the hotel gates, in spa pavilions set on cliffs and in gardens, while on cruise days the crowded town centre is best avoided.