VacationSelector
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls
White sand and turquoise water at Pensacola Beach, Pensacola
PensacolaWhite sand and turquoise water at Pensacola Beach

Photos: Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Pensacola by Jason Meredith, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Ocho Rios or Pensacola?

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
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Pensacola for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Pensacola’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, Pensacola 84: Pensacola leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Ocho Rios 42, Pensacola 45: Pensacola leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Ocho Rios 16, Pensacola 45: Pensacola leads by 29 points.
Nightlife. Ocho Rios 28, Pensacola 42: Pensacola leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ocho Rios 72, Pensacola 62: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Ocho Rios 56, Pensacola 45: Ocho Rios leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Ocho Rios 60, Pensacola 62: Pensacola leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Ocho Rios 24, Pensacola 18: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Ocho Rios 26, Pensacola 28: Pensacola leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Ocho Rios 42, Pensacola 44: Pensacola leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ocho Rios 14, Pensacola 36: Pensacola leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ocho Rios 50, Pensacola 30: Ocho Rios leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ocho Rios and Pensacola.

Your match

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

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on wellness and day trips with your weighting.

Pensacola
Best match
45match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Pensacola in July

33 °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 RiosPensacola

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). Pensacola: 1991-2020 normals, Pensacola / Pleasant Grove (12.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOcho RiosPensacola
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 m31 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPensacola International Airport (PNS)6 km from centre27 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureOcho RiosPensacola
City population16,67154,312
People per km²-515
Museums within 10 km05
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months7 months

Where else could you go?

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