VacationSelector
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Negril or Ottawa?

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 Negril for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

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

Choose Ottawa for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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. Negril 93, Ottawa 35: Negril leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Negril 36, Ottawa 45: Ottawa leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Negril 8, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Negril 40, Ottawa 35: Negril leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Negril 60, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Negril 35, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Negril 45, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Negril 30, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Negril 15, Ottawa 40: Ottawa leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Negril 44, Ottawa 40: Negril leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Negril 33, Ottawa 52: Ottawa leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Negril 52, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Negril and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Negril
41match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Ottawa
Best match
51match

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.

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
NegrilOttawa

Where the figures come from

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril 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. Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNegrilOttawa
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisFrench, English
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation10 m70 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureNegrilOttawa
City population4,5001,017,449
People per km²-366
Museums within 10 km020
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Negril or Ottawa somewhere new.

Browse every destination

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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.