Everyone knows that when you pull up a search on tourist locations in Jamaica to visit, Negril is high on that list.
But other than being a seven mile stretch boasting mediocre water clarity, Negril has little to offer tourists. If you’re looking to relax, you’re definitely going to get hustled beyond anything you’ve ever faced in Negril. In fact, you may even find that you’ve gone two blocks in a taxi service, before someone while try to charge you twenty five dollars for a two dollar ride.
Here are ten reasons to skip Negril altogether:
1. Why bother with messed up ghetto-fab freaktoid cab drivers who call you “blood,” because you point out that you have never paid 15 USD for a cab ride that lasted thirty seconds, anywhere else in the world?
2. You will meet route taxis who will refrain from telling you that the famous Rick’s Cafe is closed until noon every day, until they take you there. Then they will try to double your charge upon your return.
3. Hustlers on the street will tell you that you can get to Mayfields Falls and back, and they’ll charge you 25 USD for you and your friend (this makes sense when you realize how inexpensive Jamaica’s long distance rides are, where even a day long cab hire between Mo Bay and Treasure Beach costs 40 USD per person, and is about one tenth of the distance).
4. Hustlers in Negril will continue to harass you and call you LONG after you leave Negril, if they think they can get away with it. We got harassed by one guy who called my friend and me 28 times in half a day. This hustler, Danavan, also managed to get us into a waterfall, at which point he lied about the agreed amount we had decided to pay, and proceeded to tell me that I’m lying- because clearly, any woman is lying to the machismo freaks who rule this town.
5. The food is okay. It’s not great. In fact, nowhere in Jamaica is there a decent restaurant, but if you’re really stumped in Negril and have gone anyway, check out the Sunrise Cafe’s Italian grub.
6. If it is not clear to you already, in Negril, just like in Mo Bay, but unlike ANYWHERE in the rest of Jamaica, you are simply money bags. You’re not a human being to the local freaks who will leech you for all your money’s worth- and that too, for a mediocre time.
Close up of Ackee Fruit on Tree
7. Oracabessa, which is the exact same distance in the other direction, past Ocho Rios, offers better views, cooler accommodation, and certainly locals who will leave you alone instead of trying to mess with you.
8. The openness of Negril’s beaches in comparison to Jamaica’s more barbed wire friendly resorts, is perhaps refreshing, until you realize you have security guards following you all the way to Sandals.
9. Jamaican men don’t know how to leave you alone, even if you’re with someone else. I am not even trying to generalize. They don’t take no for an answer, and Negril is the shittiest answer to Jamaica’s sex tourism problems.
10. In a country that features the Blue Lagoon, and James Bond’s beach as well as a gazillion gorgeous waterfalls, Negril is the hub of the seediest, trashiest beaches anywhere I have been to in the Caribbean. Abort mission, while you’re still planning it. You want a great, hassle free vacation…? Either go to Jamaica’s east coast, or skip out on the country entirely, and head on over to either Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, or Trinidad and Tobago.
After all, we all take vacations to relax… not to feel as though we need to take a vacation from our vacation.
