Sights—Snorkeling and diving at Montego Bay Marine Park; Doctor's Cave Beach, with its fine vistas across the bay.
Museums—Rose Hall, recalling the opulence and heartache of the plantation slave era; Barrett Plantation, granting a latter-day perspective on the workings of a modern sugar plantation; The Reggae Experience.
Memorable Meals—Hearty Jamaican fare at the historic Town House By the Sea; nouvelle cuisine at the Houseboat Grill International Restaurant; mouth-searing jerk chicken, pork or fish at The Pork Pit.
Late Night—Letting your hair down at Margaritaville; the Monday-night street party on Gloucester Avenue.
Walks—The historic downtown, with its colorful, bustling life, Sam Sharpe Square, St. James Parish Church and the craft market.
Especially for Kids—Go-karts and safe swimming at AquaSol Theme Park; exploring the undersea world aboard a semisubmarine with bubble-dome windows.
The largest town on the north coast, Montego Bay occupies a broad valley and the slopes of the surrounding Bogue, Kempshot and Salem hills. The beaches line the east side of the bay, north of downtown. Residents tend to live downtown, south of the square and in the hills. Hotels, tourist-oriented businesses and vendors are concentrated to the north along Gloucester Avenue—the main tourist strip. The airport is northeast of town. The main all-inclusive resorts line the sandy shore and extend for several miles/kilometers east of the airport. Highway A1 (the North Coast Highway) is the main thoroughfare.
Christopher Columbus named the bay Golfo de Buen Tiempo, or Gulf of Fair Weather. Montego's modern name comes from the Spanish Bahia de Manteca, or Bay of Pigs' Lard, after the large quantity of lard exported by the Spanish. (It came from the wild boars that lived in the hills around the bay.) The Spanish also planted sugarcane, importing slaves from Africa to work the plantations. After the British drove the Spanish out in 1655, they continued the plantation tradition. The town grew with warehouses and lavish homes sprouting up along the waterfront.
Around Christmas 1831, slave and part-time preacher Sam Sharpe convinced other slaves to stage a nonviolent strike. The rebellion turned violent, however, and it was brutally suppressed by British troops. Sharpe and several other slaves were hanged in Montego Bay. The square where the gallows stood is now named for Sharpe (a statue there honors him as a national hero).
Early seeds of tourism were sown in Montego Bay when wealthy plantation owners took their families to Doctor's Cave Beach, where the mineral springs were thought to be healthful. By 1908, the Montego Bay Citizens' Association was promoting the city as "the most beautiful spot in Jamaica." Although hotels emerged, tourism remained limited until the advent of commercial jet aviation. Ensuing decades witnessed construction of top-class hotels in the hills, and all-inclusive resorts were built in the 1980s. Cruise traffic has been given a boost by enhancement to the harbor, and a long-touted convention center is planned for east of the city.
The expanse of land from the Hip Strip to the Parish Library was once part of the shore, and all development there is fairly recent, within the past 30-50 years.
Doctor's Cave Beach does not have a cave. It was destroyed by a hurricane in the 1800s.
The Montego Freeport was originally a group of keys to the west of Montego Bay. The harbor was dredged and the land built up to facilitate this development.
There are four golf courses around Montego Bay. Two of them have played host to the Jamaica Open.
