VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Newport Beach or Ocho Rios?

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 Newport Beach for

  • shopping
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Ocho Rios’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. Newport Beach 70, Ocho Rios 78: Ocho Rios leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, Ocho Rios 42: Newport Beach leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, Ocho Rios 16: Newport Beach leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, Ocho Rios 28: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, Ocho Rios 72: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, Ocho Rios 56: Newport Beach leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach 80, Ocho Rios 60: Newport Beach leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, Ocho Rios 24: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, Ocho Rios 26: Newport Beach leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, Ocho Rios 14: Newport Beach leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on shopping and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Ocho Rios in July

33 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Newport BeachOcho Rios

Where the figures come from

Ocho Rios's temperatures are measured 62 km from the centre, at Kingston / Norman Manley.

Ocho Rios 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. Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNewport BeachOcho Rios
Official language-English, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation3 m59 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachOcho Rios
City population85,23916,671
People per km²622-
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Newport Beach or Ocho Rios 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). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.