Jamaica
Montego Bay
A city on the water with the island's main airport in it. It can be a practical base for a first trip, especially when you want beaches, city access and the airport close together.
Why Montego Bay
Montego Bay is a working city that happens to have beaches, which is what separates it from most of the places people fly to Jamaica for. There is traffic, there are people going to work, and the visitor strip is one part of somewhere larger rather than the whole of it.
Sangster International sits in the city. Doctor's Cave Beach is on the waterfront strip, roughly two miles by road from the terminal. On a short trip that proximity is the whole argument: nothing has to be spent getting here from here.
The beach itself sits inside the Montego Bay Marine Park, so the reef is reachable from the sand rather than from a boat that has to be arranged. Gloucester Avenue, the stretch most people call the Hip Strip, runs along the water and is walkable end to end, which is what makes a first evening easy when you have no car and no bearings.
It also works as a base for the north coast. Falmouth is roughly twenty eight miles east, and rafting on the Martha Brae starts about three miles inland from there, roughly forty minutes from the city. If you are staying at a resort, that is the shape of a good afternoon out of it.
Explore Montego Bay
Beaches
Doctor's Cave and Harmony Beach Park, both on the city's own waterfront and inside the Montego Bay Marine Park.
Food
Jerk cooked slowly over pimento wood at Scotchies, and the kitchens along Gloucester Avenue.
Things to do
Snorkelling the marine park, rafting the Martha Brae out towards Falmouth, and the Luminous Lagoon after dark.
Nightlife
Gloucester Avenue after dark, close enough together to decide on foot.
Culture
Rose Hall Great House on the sugar estates east of the city, and the hummingbirds at Rocklands in the hills above it.
Places and experiences
Montego Bay guides
Getting your bearings
- 01
The airport is in the city
Sangster International is roughly two miles by road from Doctor's Cave Beach. A short trip loses very little to getting here.
- 02
Gloucester Avenue is the spine
The Hip Strip runs along the water and holds most of what is walkable from one another. It is short enough to see your options before committing to any of them.
- 03
The north coast is reachable
Falmouth is roughly twenty eight miles east. Rafting on the Martha Brae starts about three miles inland from there, roughly forty minutes from Montego Bay.
- 04
How it differs from Negril
Negril is about fifty miles away, a little over an hour of driving on a clear run and longer in traffic. Montego Bay is the denser, more connected of the two; Negril is the one organised around its coast.
Our take
Our view: Montego Bay is the easier choice when the trip is short, or when you want variety without spending much of it transferring between places. It is not the more beautiful of the two, and it is not trying to be. It is the one that gives you the most back per day.
The other one
Negril A town organised around its coast, for a trip where the beach is the point rather than part of it.Planning a Jamaica trip?
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