VacationSelector
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Ocho Rios or Santa Fe?

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

  • beaches
  • families
  • prices

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

Choose Santa Fe for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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, Santa Fe 5: Ocho Rios leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Ocho Rios 42, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Ocho Rios 16, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Ocho Rios 28, Santa Fe 22: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ocho Rios 72, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Ocho Rios 56, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Ocho Rios 60, Santa Fe 45: Ocho Rios leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Ocho Rios 24, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Ocho Rios 26, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Ocho Rios 42, Santa Fe 30: Ocho Rios leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ocho Rios 14, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 41 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ocho Rios 50, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Ocho Rios
42match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Santa Fe
Best match
49match

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

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ocho RiosSanta Fe

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.

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOcho RiosSanta Fe
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican Patois-
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation59 m2,134 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOcho RiosSanta Fe
City population16,67187,505
People per km²-645
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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