VacationSelector
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls
Whitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Palm BeachWhitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum

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

Ocho Rios or Palm 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

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose Palm Beach for

  • shopping
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm 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, Palm Beach 82: Palm Beach leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Ocho Rios 42, Palm Beach 47: Palm Beach leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Ocho Rios 16, Palm Beach 45: Palm Beach leads by 29 points.
Nightlife. Ocho Rios 28, Palm Beach 32: Palm Beach leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ocho Rios 72, Palm Beach 58: Ocho Rios leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Ocho Rios 56, Palm Beach 55: Ocho Rios leads by 1 points.
Good for families. Ocho Rios 60, Palm Beach 62: Palm Beach leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Ocho Rios 24, Palm Beach 32: Palm Beach leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Ocho Rios 26, Palm Beach 66: Palm Beach leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Ocho Rios 42, Palm Beach 12: Ocho Rios leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ocho Rios 14, Palm Beach 45: Palm Beach leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ocho Rios 50, Palm Beach 55: Palm Beach leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ocho Rios and Palm Beach.

Your match

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

Ocho Rios
42match

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

Palm Beach
Best match
49match

Wins on shopping and live music and the arts 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

Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 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 RiosPalm 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). Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (6.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOcho RiosPalm Beach
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation59 m2 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureOcho RiosPalm Beach
City population16,6719,245
People per km²-322
Museums within 10 km04
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Ocho Rios or Palm 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.