VacationSelector
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan

Photos: Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License.

Negril or Samarkand?

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
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Samarkand for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Samarkand’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, Samarkand 4: Negril leads by 89 points.
Food & drink. Negril 36, Samarkand 54: Samarkand leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Negril 8, Samarkand 84: Samarkand leads by 76 points.
Nightlife. Negril 40, Samarkand 14: Negril leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Negril 60, Samarkand 40: Negril leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Negril 35, Samarkand 72: Samarkand leads by 37 points.
Good for families. Negril 45, Samarkand 30: Negril leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Negril 30, Samarkand 58: Samarkand leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Negril 15, Samarkand 42: Samarkand leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Negril 44, Samarkand 80: Samarkand leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Negril 33, Samarkand 24: Negril leads by 9 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Negril 52, Samarkand 32: Negril leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Negril and Samarkand.

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.

Samarkand
Best match
45match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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

Samarkand in July

34 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
NegrilSamarkand

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). Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNegrilSamarkand
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisUzbek
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Uzbekistan Sum (UZS)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzCFI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+5
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110112
Elevation10 m702 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureNegrilSamarkand
City population4,500546,303
People per km²-5,058
Museums within 10 km011
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 Samarkand 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.