VacationSelector
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Nuevo Vallarta 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 Nuevo Vallarta for

  • families
  • beaches
  • wellness

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • nightlife
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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. Nuevo Vallarta 84, Ocho Rios 78: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Nuevo Vallarta 40, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Nuevo Vallarta 6, Ocho Rios 16: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Nuevo Vallarta 16, Ocho Rios 28: Ocho Rios leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Nuevo Vallarta 75, Ocho Rios 72: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Nuevo Vallarta 58, Ocho Rios 56: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Nuevo Vallarta 73, Ocho Rios 60: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Nuevo Vallarta 25, Ocho Rios 24: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. Nuevo Vallarta 22, Ocho Rios 26: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Nuevo Vallarta 45, Ocho Rios 42: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Nuevo Vallarta 18, Ocho Rios 14: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Nuevo Vallarta 55, Ocho Rios 50: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Nuevo Vallarta and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on nightlife and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Nuevo Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
206 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 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
Nuevo VallartaOcho Rios

Where the figures come from

Nuevo Vallarta has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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. Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNuevo VallartaOcho Rios
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation3 m59 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureNuevo VallartaOcho Rios
City population1,30116,671
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Nuevo Vallarta or Ocho Rios somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.