Jamaica

⚠️ Entry rules and local regulations change without notice. Before booking, check entry requirements and local rules — visas, access, nature reserves, visitor quotas — with the official authorities.

Jamaica, the third-largest island in the Caribbean, is the birthplace of reggae and Rastafarian culture. Home of Bob Marley and countless Olympic champions, this vibrant island combines heavenly beaches, verdant mountains and a unique Afro-Caribbean culture. Negril and its 11 km of white sand, Montego Bay and its resorts, the Blue Mountains with the coffee estates of the famous Blue Mountain Coffee, Dunn's River Falls at Ocho Rios, and Kingston the cultural capital paint a picture of extraordinary richness. Jamaican cuisine — jerk chicken, ackee and saltfish (the national dish), Appleton rum — is renowned worldwide. 'One Love': the Jamaican spirit is lived as much as it is heard.

Three Jamaicas

The north-west coast — Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios — is the one with the resorts, Dunn's River Falls and seven miles of beach. This is the Jamaica of the brochures, the simplest and the most signposted.

The east coast, around Port Antonio, is another thing entirely: fewer hotels, dense vegetation, the Blue Lagoon and bamboo-raft trips on the Rio Grande. This is where people go who find Negril too busy.

Then there is the interior, little known: the Blue Mountains, UNESCO-listed, rise to 2,256 m and produce one of the most expensive coffees in the world. You can sleep up there and climb by night to watch the sun rise over Cuba, on a clear day. And Kingston, which many wrongly avoid, keeps the Bob Marley Museum and Trench Town, where reggae was born.

The dry season, and the music calendar

From December to April, dry warm weather and a calm sea: the best period, and the most expensive. The rains run from June to November, with a cyclone peak in September. Music lovers aim for July, the month of Reggae Sumfest in Montego Bay.

Jerk, patois and driving on the left

Jamaican cooking is eaten at the roadside: jerk — chicken or pork marinated in spices and smoked slowly over pimento wood — is best at Boston Bay, where it was born. The national breakfast pairs ackee, a fruit with the texture of scrambled egg, with salt fish.

Driving is on the left, on narrow and sometimes broken roads, with an expressive local style: car hire is not the first choice for a first visit — a private driver or organised transfers are more restful. English is the official language, but among themselves Jamaicans speak patois: do not be surprised to understand nothing, it is not your English that is at fault.

Essentials & your questions