Jamaica is a north coast, and four towns on it.
Which waterfall you can actually climb. What a raft down the Martha Brae costs. Whether the lagoon glows on the night you are there. Every tour in Jamaica, read before you book it.
On Jamaica’s north coast, the resort you booked decides the day.
Almost everything sold in Jamaica is a hotel pickup, and the drive is the whole story: Dunn’s River is twenty minutes from Ocho Rios and the better part of two hours from Negril. Find where you are sleeping first.
By the town you are staying in
Montego Bay775 tours
Ocho Rios198 tours
Negril107 tours
Trelawny & Falmouth100 tours
Runaway Bay26 tours
Lucea30 tours
Kingston61 tours- Every review →
Three ways to spend a morning in Jamaica.
Nearly every visitor books one water day and then wishes they had booked two. These are the three the island is actually known for, and all of them are half a day with a hotel pickup.
Dunn’s River Falls, hand in hand up the terraces
Six hundred feet of limestone terraces running straight into the sea at Ocho Rios, climbed as a human chain with a guide at the front. Water shoes are the one thing worth having, and most trips include the park entry and a beach stop afterwards.
See all 155 →
The Blue Hole, where you jump instead of climb
Inland from Ocho Rios the White River cuts a chain of turquoise pools into the rock. There is no staircase here: you jump, swing in on a rope, or walk up to the smaller Secret Falls. Quieter than Dunn’s River and a good deal wetter.
See all 172 →
A bamboo raft, a captain and thirty feet of river
Two people on a bamboo raft, one captain standing at the back with a pole, ninety minutes of river and nothing at all to do. The Martha Brae in Trelawny and the Great River outside Montego Bay are the two runs, and most finish with a limestone massage on the bank.
See all 212 →Jamaica’s waterfalls are not one waterfall.
One you climb, one you jump into, one has seven cascades and a rope swing, one sits in a garden above the town. They are different days out and they cost different money.
Rafting in Jamaica means a pole, not a paddle.
There is no whitewater on this island. Every raft trip here is a bamboo raft on a slow river — the Martha Brae, the Great River, the Lethe, the Rio Grande — with a captain who stands at the back and talks the whole way down. It is the cheapest good hour in Jamaica and the one thing most people say they would do twice.
From a raft on the Martha Brae to a private day across Jamaica.
Every published review sorted by what the operator asks per person. The resort desk almost always asks more than this, and the gap is widest at the cheap end.
A raft down the river, the limestone massage, a beach club pass and the shorter falls trips.
Dunn’s River, the Blue Hole, river tubing, the Luminous Lagoon night boat and most ATV mornings.
The full-day combinations — falls plus rafting plus lunch — and the catamaran sunset cruises.
A driver for the whole day, Appleton and the Blue Mountains from the coast, and the long runs south to YS Falls.
What travellers in Jamaica actually book.
Every review →Ordered by how many people have been and rated them. Airport runs are the largest single category on the island and they are deliberately kept out of this list — nobody flies to Jamaica for the drive.
1
Jamaica All-Access Adventure Pass at Ocean Outpost
A $163.90 all-access day-pass at Chukka Ocean Outpost in Montego Bay, with hotel pickup plus horseback, zipline, catamarans, rum tastings, and pool time.
From · $163
Read our review →2
Negril One Love Bus Bar Crawl
from $25
3
Jamaica Dunn’s River Falls Party Cruise with Snorkeling
from $133
4
Blue Hole, Secret Falls, and Dunn’s River Falls Combo Day-Trip
from $125
5
Triple Action pack Combo (Blue Hole, Horse back riding and river tubing)
from $141
6
Jamaica Martha Brae Bamboo Rafting with Bus Transportation
from $134
7
Bamboo Rafting and horseback
from $142
8
Jamaica Bamboo Rafting Experience with Lime Stone Massage
from $47
Rose Hall was the owner’s house. The estate was worked by enslaved people.
Rose Hall, above the coast road east of Montego Bay, was a sugar plantation, and around 250 enslaved people worked it. Greenwood belonged to the Barrett family, who owned estates across the island. Croydon, up in the St James hills, still grows coffee and pineapple on the same ground. That is what these houses are, and it is worth knowing before you walk through one.
The tours are a guided walk through the house and the grounds, usually about an hour, usually with a drink at the end. The evening ones at Rose Hall are built around a nineteenth-century story about a murderous mistress, which is fiction. We list them with the history named and the ghost story left where it belongs.
The great houses →Negril is seven miles of sand and a cliff that faces the sunset.
An hour and a half west of Montego Bay the coast turns and the beach runs unbroken for seven miles. The cliffs start where the sand stops, and everybody ends up on them at six o’clock — Rick’s Cafe, the divers working the ledge, and the catamarans anchored offshore for exactly the same reason.
Three Jamaican evenings that do not exist anywhere else.
Sunsets and boat trips are everywhere. A bay that lights up when you swim in it, a cliff where the diving is the floor show, and the hillside where Bob Marley is buried are not.
The Bay That Lights Up
Glistening Waters at Falmouth is one of a handful of bioluminescent bays on earth bright enough to swim in. Microscopic organisms in the brackish water flash when the water is disturbed, so the wake behind the boat glows and so does anyone who gets in. Boats leave after full dark, and the effect is strongest on a moonless night — check the moon before you pick a date, because a bright one washes it out.
- 1Luminous Lagoon Night Tour from Montego Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 419 reviews
- 2Mesmerizing Luminous Lagoon (Glistening Waters) Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 98 reviews
- 3Explore Montego Bay to Luminous LagoonGlistening Water Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 78 reviews
The Cliff at Rick’s
Rick’s Cafe sits on the Negril cliffs facing due west, which is the whole business model. Local divers work the thirty-five-foot ledge and the almond tree above it for tips, the sun goes down behind them, and a few hundred people watch from the terrace. Trips from Montego Bay leave mid-afternoon and get back late; the ones that come by catamaran arrive from the water side.
- 1NEGRIL CATAMARAN CRUISE Sunset Ricks Cafe Adults only ALL HOTELS★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 390 reviews
- 2Private Negril DayTrip from Montego Bay Rick’s Café, 7 Mile Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 263 reviews
- 3ATV Jungle Ride and Sunset at Rick’s Cafe from Montego Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 224 reviews
Nine Mile
Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in the St Ann hills and is buried there, in a mausoleum beside the one-room house he grew up in. It is a working village and the guides are family and neighbours. The road up from the coast is slow: most of a day from Ocho Rios and longer from Montego Bay. Go for the place rather than for a museum.
- 1Bob Marley’s Nine Mile Admission and Guided Tour from Montego Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 350 reviews
- 2Jamaica Combo Tour: Dunn’s River Falls and Bob Marley’s Nine Mile★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 273 reviews
- 3Dunn’s River Falls, Bob Marley 9 Mile – Optional Lagoon Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 135 reviews
Rastafari began in Jamaica, and these visits are hosted by people who practise it.
Rastafari began in Jamaica in the 1930s and has somewhere near a million adherents worldwide. The visits listed here are arranged with Rastafari communities in the hills behind Montego Bay and Negril: you are shown the settlement, the farming, the drumming and the ital cooking by the people who live there. Several are sold attached to an ATV or UTV ride, which is how you will find them advertised.
These are the most-reviewed bookings on the whole site. We list them and we do not rank them — a countdown of somebody’s faith is not a page this site publishes.
More Rastafari community visits →
Three things in Jamaica that will not wait for the resort desk.
Most of this island can be arranged in the hotel lobby the night before, and the price is usually worse for it. These three are decided by something other than availability: the moon, the distillery’s opening days, and a ship’s all-aboard time.
- 01Luminous Lagoon Night Tour from Montego BayThe glow is brightest with no moon. Pick the night off the lunar calendar first and the boat second.
- 02Private Transportation from Montego Bay to Appleton Estate & Pelican BarThe distillery runs set tour times on weekdays and it is two and a half hours from the north coast. This is a whole day, not an afternoon.
- 03From Falmouth/Ocho Rios: Negril Beach and Catamaran CruiseOn a ship day the all-aboard time is fixed and Dunn’s River is an hour each way from the Falmouth pier. Book the excursion before you dock.
Jamaica decriminalised cannabis in 2015. It did not legalise it.
Possession of up to two ounces is a ticketable petty offence rather than a criminal one, and a household may grow up to five plants. Licensed premises — herb houses — may sell to someone holding a medical recommendation, which can be issued on the spot. Buying anywhere else is not lawful, and carrying it out of the country is a serious offence at both ends of the flight.
The tours listed here are visits to working farms in the hills behind Montego Bay and Negril, usually combined with a raft trip, a bird sanctuary or a beach. They are farm visits with a guide, and that is how we describe them.
Licensed cannabis farm tours →
By the kind of day it is
The newest Jamaica reviews on the site.
All recent →
Dunn’s River Falls and Ocho Rios Shopping Tour from Montego Bay Hotels
Read our review →
Party Catamaran Cruise with Open Bar and Snorkeling Montego Bay
Read our review →
Zipline, Horseback Ride, ATV and Catamaran from Montego Bay
Read our review →
Caribbean Adventure Experience( Atv, Zipline, Horseback…)
Read our review →
Jet Ski/ Parasailig Water Activity in Montego Bay Jamaica.
Read our review →
ATV Tour from Montego Bay with private transportation
Read our review →
Night Life Tour in Montego Bay with complimentary section
Read our review →
Montego Bay Night Life & Clubbing l Pier 1, Lounge 27/27 l Taboo
Read our review →
