VacationSelector
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden

Photos: Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Negril or Santa Barbara?

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
  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Barbara for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Barbara’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, Santa Barbara 60: Negril leads by 33 points.
Food & drink. Negril 36, Santa Barbara 62: Santa Barbara leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Negril 8, Santa Barbara 48: Santa Barbara leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Negril 40, Santa Barbara 34: Negril leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Negril 60, Santa Barbara 80: Santa Barbara leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Negril 35, Santa Barbara 55: Santa Barbara leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Negril 45, Santa Barbara 64: Santa Barbara leads by 19 points.
Getting around. Negril 30, Santa Barbara 46: Santa Barbara leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Negril 15, Santa Barbara 45: Santa Barbara leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Negril 44, Santa Barbara 15: Negril leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Negril 33, Santa Barbara 50: Santa Barbara leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Negril 52, Santa Barbara 50: Negril leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Negril and Santa Barbara.

Your match

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

Negril
41match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Santa Barbara
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping 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

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
18 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
NegrilSanta Barbara

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). Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNegrilSanta Barbara
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation10 m15 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNegrilSanta Barbara
City population4,50088,665
People per km²-816
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Negril or Santa Barbara 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.