VacationSelector
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls
The white beach below the high-rise hotels, Orange Beach
Orange BeachThe white beach below the high-rise hotels

Photos: Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Orange Beach by WeaponizingArchitecture, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Ocho Rios or Orange Beach?

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 Ocho Rios for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Orange Beach for

  • live music and the arts
  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Orange Beach’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. Ocho Rios 78, Orange Beach 86: Orange Beach leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Ocho Rios 42, Orange Beach 40: Ocho Rios leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Ocho Rios 16, Orange Beach 7: Ocho Rios leads by 9 points.
Nightlife. Ocho Rios 28, Orange Beach 30: Orange Beach leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ocho Rios 72, Orange Beach 60: Ocho Rios leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Ocho Rios 56, Orange Beach 50: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Ocho Rios 60, Orange Beach 75: Orange Beach leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Ocho Rios 24, Orange Beach 15: Ocho Rios leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Ocho Rios 26, Orange Beach 25: Ocho Rios leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Ocho Rios 42, Orange Beach 38: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ocho Rios 14, Orange Beach 32: Orange Beach leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ocho Rios 50, Orange Beach 32: Ocho Rios leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ocho Rios and Orange Beach.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Orange Beach
41match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Orange Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
200 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ocho RiosOrange Beach

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. Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre). Orange Beach: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Gulf Shores / Bay Village Mobile Home Park (10.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOcho RiosOrange Beach
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation59 m4 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPensacola International Airport (PNS)41 km from centre27 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOcho RiosOrange Beach
City population16,6718,095
People per km²-196
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ocho Rios or Orange Beach 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). 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.