Kingston
Its reputation preceding it like a police siren, Kingston deters most visitors.
Its reputation preceding it like a police siren, Kingston deters most visitors.
A bustling town with a turbulent history, a thriving port and a hopping ‘hip strip, ’ Montego Bay is Jamaica’s most charged city.
Wrapped around a small bay with postcard-worthy snugness, Ocho Rios is a former fishing village that the Jamaica Tourist Board earmarked for tourism in the mid-1980s.
Negril, 81km west of Montego Bay, is the vortex around which Jamaica’s fun-in-the-sun vacation life whirls.
Cupping an unruffled bay while backing into the sleepy Rio Grande Valley, Port Antonio is the perfect capital for Portland.
Imperturbable Mandeville lounges 610m above sea level on a plateau of the eastern flank of the Don Figuerero Mountains.
If Treasure Beach were any more laid-back it would risk floating off into the sea.
This residential suburb about 8km east of Montego Bay is a center for deluxe resorts and villas, several of which line the shoreline of the scintillating Mahoe Bay.
Though capital of St Elizabeth and the parish’s largest town, Black River has a transient feel to it.
Once the pirate capital of the Caribbean – and for more than 200 years the hub of British naval power in the West Indies – Port Royal today is a dilapidated, ramshackle place of tropical lassitude, replete with important historical buildings...
Deriving their name from the azure haze that settles lazily around their peaks, this 45km-long mountain range looms high above the eastern parishes of St Andrew, St Thomas, Portland and St Mary.
This bay (16km west of St Ann’s) has a modicum of hotels and tourist facilities, though the place is far from sophisticated.
Spanish Town, Jamaica’s capital for more than 300 years, was once considered to boast exemplary town planning.
Beyond the turnoff for Folly the A4 meanders east of Port Antonio through the coastal villages of Drapers, Frenchman’s Cove and Fairy Hill.
‘Lucy, ’ as the town is commonly known, is built around a harbor ringed by hills on three sides.
Savanna-la-Mar is the largest town in western Jamaica and the capital of Westmoreland parish.
Subscribe now and receive a 20% discount on your next guidebook purchase
© 2013 Lonely Planet. All rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced without our written permission.