VacationSelector
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Ocho Rios or Puerto Escondido?

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

  • day trips
  • families
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Ocho Rios 42, Puerto Escondido 48: Puerto Escondido leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Ocho Rios 16, Puerto Escondido 8: Ocho Rios leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Ocho Rios 28, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ocho Rios 72, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Ocho Rios 56, Puerto Escondido 35: Ocho Rios leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Ocho Rios 60, Puerto Escondido 42: Ocho Rios leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Ocho Rios 24, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Ocho Rios 26, Puerto Escondido 22: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Ocho Rios 42, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ocho Rios 14, Puerto Escondido 12: Ocho Rios leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ocho Rios 50, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ocho Rios and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on day trips and families with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
Best match
45match

Wins on prices and nightlife 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

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ocho RiosPuerto Escondido

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.

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOcho RiosPuerto Escondido
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation59 m60 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureOcho RiosPuerto Escondido
City population16,67129,903
Museums within 10 km00
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 Puerto Escondido 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.