Montego Bay

Jamaica keeps its edges, and Montego Bay is the simplest place to meet it. Expect the music up, the cooking hot, and hotels that play to that instead of flattening it into a generic Caribbean week. Families after somewhere with a character of its own usually settle here.

The resorts along the Rose Hall corridor and those in the town itself are more different from each other than the shared address suggests — quiet estate properties and large, lively all-inclusives sit fifteen minutes apart. Which half you book decides what kind of week you have.