Not to miss

Montego Bay

Jamaica's northwestern node is the thriving port city of MoBay. This is resort Jamaica at its purest and most puerile, where a crowded tourist mishmash of one-way streets full of honking cars and pedestrians almost obscures the reasons people come.

These include scintillating beaches, the golf courses, the historic houses and the mountain-village life going on behind the narrow coastal strip. Despite MoBay's reputation as a hustlers' city, there are attractions that make it worth being asked 'Hey, Jake! Smoke? Coke?' every few steps.

Many admirable Georgian stone buildings and timber houses still stand downtown, and there is an excellent variety of arts and crafts. Every kind of water sport is offered, although most of the good beaches are the private domains of resort hotels.

Those seeking a budget holiday with a lively nightlife and shops and markets packed with bargains will be right at home, as will those seeking to spend a week idly sunning at an all-inclusive upmarket resort. However, if you're interested in Jamaica beyond the tourist ideal of 'Caribbean-ness,' you'll find little in Montego Bay.

Kingston

Jamaica's teeming capital city suffers from a negative image that, though partly deserved, belies its charms. At first neither welcoming nor beautiful, the city is diminished by squalor, and its culture can be darned right intimidating. Seething tensions simmer below the surface and often boil over.

But although there are places visitors are advised to steer well clear of, Kingston is the vibrant heartbeat of Jamaica and its centre of commerce and culture. It hustles, it bustles, and it merits a visit, especially during one of the annual festivals.

The view from the mountains reveals leafy foothill suburbs overlooking a magnificent natural harbour. Just north of the waterfront is the historic downtown area, with its high-rise hotels and offices and its urban underclass: hustlers, street vendors, and beggars. New Kingston is uptown, north of the old centre.

The Bob Marley Museum, at the reggae superstar's former home in New Kingston, is the city's most visited attraction. Downtown Kingston's waterfront area is well and truly ready for its planned restoration, but it's still a good place for a breezy walk, and you can visit the craft market on the wharves. A few blocks westward is the National Gallery.

Cockpit Country

Cockpit Country is a massive, dramatic, sculpted limestone plateau in Jamaica's central west. The area is studded with thousands of conical hummocks divided by precipitous ravines. Light plane or helicopter excursions are the most spectacular way to get a sense of the area's scale and beauty.

Given that no roads penetrate the region, this is often the only way visitors get to see the Cockpits. Virtually unsullied by humans, the area is replete with wildlife, a temptation for birdwatchers, nature lovers and spelunkers (the Cockpits are laced with caves, most of them uncharted).

Most of the trails are faint, rocky tracks, often overgrown slave trails that you can only follow with the aid of a machete. The rocks are razor-sharp, and sinkholes are everywhere, often covered by decayed vegetation and ready to crumble underfoot. Never travel alone here, and don't underestimate how strenuous and hot it can be.

It's easiest to approach Cockpit Country via Montego Bay to the north, where buses and minibuses head to towns like Clark's Town and Windsor on the northern fringe of the wilderness area.

St James Parish Church

Built between 1775 and 1782, and later rebuilt after the 1957 earthquake, this is regarded as one of the finest churches on the island. With a bit of luck you'll be blessed with a view of the beautiful interior, which contains a stunning stained-glass window behind the altar. Inside are some fine marble monuments, one dedicated to the White Witch of Rose Hall.

Rose Hall Great House

The infamy of multiple-murderer Annie Palmer, AKA 'White Witch of Rose Hall' surrounds this imposing 18th-century house and its inhabitants. Though destroyed by slaves in 1831, it was restored to its haughty three-storey grandeur in 1966. Besides discovering the thrilling legend, an abode full of antiques, mahogany and silk awaits you - as do an old English-style pub, snack bar and gift shop.

Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is by any measure one of the most beautiful spots in Jamaica. Made famous by a certain Brooke Shields movie and the site of a well-publicised Jacques Cousteau dive, the 52m-deep (170.6ft) 'Blue Hole' (as locals call it) opens to the sea through a narrow funnel, but is fed by freshwater springs that come in at about 40m (131ft) deep.

The lagoon's colour changes through every shade of jade and emerald during the day.

For years access was via Blue Lagoon Restaurant, but this well-loved establishment closed in the aftermath of 2004's Hurricane Ivan. It's said that the owner - already mortified by a road-improvement plan that calls for building a bridge over the lagoon - closed the place as an act of protest against the silt pollution from a nearby development. Even though the restaurant is closed, you can still steal a dip in the beautiful lagoon, which is public property and accessed from the parking lot.

Nine Mile Museum

Despite being out-of-the-way, the village of Nine Mile gets big font on the tourist map as the site of Bob Marley's birth and his final resting place. The community where the 'King of Reggae' was born on February 6, 1945, is set dramatically in the midst of Cockpits. The Nine Mile Museum commemorates his enduring legacy.

At the Museum a Rastafarian guide leads pilgrims to the hut - now festooned with devotional graffiti - where the reggae god spent his early years. Like virtually everything else, the hut is painted yellow (for sunshine), green (for nature) and red (for blood). Another highlight is 'inspiration stone' (or 'Mt Zion Rock') on which Marley sat and learned to play guitar. Marley's body lies buried along with his guitar in an 2.5m-tall oblong marble mausoleum inside a tiny church of traditional Ethiopian design. A little shop sells an array of Marley paraphernalia.

Negril

Negril is the vortex around which Jamaica's fun-in-the-sun vacation life whirls. You'll soon find yourself falling in love with Negril's insouciance and its scintillating 11km-long (6.8mi) beach shelving gently into calm waters reflecting a palette of light blues and greens.

Coral reefs lie just offshore, and you'll want your camera to record the consistently peach-coloured sunsets that get more applause than the live reggae concerts for which Negril is equally famous.

Tourism is Negril's only industry. But despite phenomenal growth in recent years, Negril is still more laid-back than anywhere else in Jamaica and there's an easygoing rapport between visitors and locals who stroll the beaches hawking everything from woodcarvings to ganja. Water sports operators offer plenty of action by day and no flowery language in any tourist brochure could do justice to Negril's mind-blowing sunsets.