Montego Bay Mid-range
Jerk chicken and pork from a roadside drum is the real thing — Scotchies is the well-known one and lives up to it. Try escoveitch fish and a Red Stripe.
Budget travel in Jamaica
What a visitor's money does in Jamaica: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Mid-range average across 1 guide · 5 is very cheap
Money
Jamaican Dollar (JMD) · 1 EUR = 181 JMD · 1 USD = 157 JMD
US dollars are accepted everywhere tourists go, but the rate offered is consistently poor. Pay in Jamaican dollars where you can, and exchange at a cambio rather than a hotel.
ATMs
Avoid: standalone machines on the Hip Strip, ATMs outside guarded plazas
Use: NCB, Scotiabank Jamaica
Withdraw inside a branch or a guarded plaza during the day, and always choose Jamaican dollars over the machine’s conversion.
Getting around
A short ride in Montego Bay: J$800–2,000 across town — middling
From the airport: Montego Bay airport to the resort strip $25–40, by licensed transfer
Route taxis are the cheap local way and they run fixed routes shared with strangers.
City by city, cheapest first
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
