VacationSelector
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls
The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San DiegoThe Botanical Building, Balboa Park

Photos: Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Diego by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Ocho Rios or San Diego?

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
  • beaches
  • wellness

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

Choose San Diego for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on San Diego’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, San Diego 72: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Ocho Rios 42, San Diego 62: San Diego leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Ocho Rios 16, San Diego 50: San Diego leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Ocho Rios 28, San Diego 48: San Diego leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ocho Rios 72, San Diego 77: San Diego leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Ocho Rios 56, San Diego 60: San Diego leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Ocho Rios 60, San Diego 96: San Diego leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Ocho Rios 24, San Diego 38: San Diego leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Ocho Rios 26, San Diego 44: San Diego leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Ocho Rios 42, San Diego 26: Ocho Rios leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ocho Rios 14, San Diego 56: San Diego leads by 42 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ocho Rios 50, San Diego 45: Ocho Rios 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 San Diego.

Your match

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

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

San Diego
Best match
56match

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

San Diego in July

24 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ocho RiosSan Diego

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). San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOcho RiosSan Diego
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation59 m129 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOcho RiosSan Diego
City population16,6711,386,932
People per km²-1,438
Museums within 10 km026
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months1 month

Where else could you go?

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