Where to stay in Jamaica: the best areas and resorts

Montego Bay is where most visitors land, and plenty never leave. The town's Hip Strip, along Gloucester Avenue, is a cheerful run of bars, jerk joints and souvenir stalls next to the clear water of Doctor's Cave Beach. East of town, the Rose Hall coast is lined with big all-inclusives, family and adults-only side by side, with golf courses and the famously haunted Rose Hall Great House behind them.

West of the bay, the mood turns private and polished: Round Hill, a legendary resort of villas and oceanfront rooms in tropical gardens, is about 20 minutes from the airport. Montego Bay is also the best base for river rafting and day trips to both Negril and Ocho Rios.

Negril is Jamaica at its most laid-back. Seven Mile Beach is a long, gentle arc of pale sand and calm, clear water, with low-rise resorts, reggae bars and jerk shacks under the palms, and the quieter Bloody Bay at its northern end. This is couples' country, home to several of the island's best-known couples-only resorts.

South of town, the West End is a completely different scene: no beach, just low cliffs riddled with sea caves, ladders into the deep blue water, boutique hotels and the famous cliff-jumping and sunset crowds at Rick's Café. Stay on the beach for swimming, on the cliffs for character. The drive from Montego Bay airport takes about an hour and a half.

Ocho Rios is greener and more dramatic than the west, with rainforest-covered hills behind the coast and rivers rushing down to the sea. Its big attraction is Dunn's River Falls, where you climb a staircase of cascading limestone hand in hand with strangers; the town itself is busy, with a cruise port and a market.

The real draw is the hotels. Jamaica Inn, a classic since 1950, has its suites spread along a private crescent of sand two miles from town, couples-only resorts tuck into coves nearby, and about 20 minutes east, in Oracabessa, GoldenEye is Ian Fleming's former estate, where he wrote the Bond novels. Montego Bay airport is around an hour and a half away.

Port Antonio is Jamaica before the resorts arrived. On the rainy, rainforest-draped north-east coast, with the Blue Mountains rising behind, it is a small, slow town with a pretty harbour and a coastline of hidden coves: the impossibly blue Blue Lagoon, Frenchman's Cove and the local favourite, Winnifred Beach. Boston Bay, just along the coast, claims to be the birthplace of jerk.

Hotels are small and characterful, from treehouse-style huts on a clifftop to restored grand hotels and simple guesthouses. Come for nature, bamboo rafting on the Rio Grande and long, lazy days; it is a long way from both airports, about 90 km from Kingston.

Kingston is Jamaica's capital and its creative engine. Bob Marley's old home is now a museum, sound systems still shake the streets at weekends, and Devon House serves some of the island's best ice cream on the lawn of a colonial mansion. The Blue Mountains, home of the famous coffee, are less than an hour's drive away.

Most hotels are in New Kingston, the business district, close to restaurants, clubs and Emancipation Park; a smart newer hotel overlooks the harbour downtown. It is not a beach base, but a couple of nights here will change how you see the rest of the island.