Tips for travelling to Negril, Jamaica

We just got back from Negril, Jamaica and thought it would be helpful to pass along these tips.

Jamaica

Negril Beach from Kuyaba Restaurant high table

Beautiful Sunset at Negril Beach

Jamaica is a very pretty country.  In terms of cleanliness I would say its actually pretty clean considering how I imagined it would be....however as you travel to the interior you'll note there is a lot of poverty. What struck me is that while the country is small, there are a lot of really interesting things to see.

People in Negril

We noticed that Jamaica is not an integrated society with it being 90.9% African American. Coming from a more integrated California/Brazil it felt a little intimidating.  My wife is very white, so when we traveled around she got a lot of curious eyes, and some other types of not very nice eyes as well.  While the culture is externally known for being very relaxed and accepting we found this not exactly true, at least on first contact.  In Negril I would say about 95% of the people that made contact with us were either trying to sell us weed or a taxi ride.  It was not uncommon on our walk from the beach to our hotel which was across the street to be pestered by ~5-7 people trying to sell us weed (in various forms) or give us a taxi ride. This left us with the impression that the people don't really care about your visit, they're more interested in getting your money.  While they're very aggressive at announcing their wares, at least they're not too insistent once you tell them no thank-you.  However in general it left us with a pretty bad impression of Jamaican culture. Also I would say based on our experience with a few locals that education doesn't seem to be a strong suit either.  Our bus driver couldn't figure out how many people would fit in his bus given the number of seats, and our private driver didn't know how to take us to the locations we wanted to visit (without informing us before-hand), or how to calculate how much he would spend in gas on the trip, yet insisted he was an educated man.  Of course we also did see other locals who were annoyed by the uneducated people from the island.

Pitch Techniques

On foot: Expect ~20 pitches per mile of walking (ugh). Whats funny is that in my opinion they abuse the "Respect" way of Jamaica.  The way they'll introduce themselves is by trying to grab your attention by saying "respect" and reaching out for a fist bump, and you'll begin to think its a nice gesture, but then comes to pitch for marijuana and/or a taxi ride. Expect this pitch from ANYONE, including people working at your hotel. Another technique is that they'll ask you to remember some fake encounter between the two of you...I guess expecting you to be too stoned to remember either way. Another interesting fact is that if you're not at one of the exclusive resorts (Sandals, etc) you'll notice that while you're eating dinner on the beach side restaurants a bunch of people will be smoking weed and looking at all the people eating dinner...I suppose indirectly selling their "stuff."  Another interesting indirect pitch we got was while we were walking in Negril this dude walks up to us and said he could walk with us through the city, I was like ok...and after awhile my wife got tired of this and stated that we wouldn't be paying anyone to walk with us, and he gave a song and dance and then left.

By car: as you're walking down the road every minute or so a car that's passing by will honk at you and ask if you need a taxi.  I mean jeez, if we needed a taxi we'd be hailing a taxi.

By jet ski: unlicensed jet ski operators will zip back and forth along the coast and stop next to you in the water asking if you'd like to pay $60 for 30 minutes.  This happened at least once a day while we were relaxing in the water.

Food

Ackee & Saltfish

Jamaica cuisine seems to be centered around "jerk" seasoning.  However there are some traditional plates like Ackee (which the locals claim is a vegetable, but really is a fruit) and Saltfish, and rice and peas that should be tried.  There are a lot of really scary (filthy) drum barrel food stands which we avoided.  In general we found the food agreeable but still prefer our Brazilian cuisine :)

Appleton Rum Tour

Tips

• Be aware of the pitches. If you're not African American, to avoid pitches go to exclusive resorts and avoid walking in the streets.
• Check out Glistening Waters with a bathing suit, its one of those things you should have on your bucket list for sure! I would also suggest using something like Vibrams if you don't like feeling slimy things on your feet :)
• Check out the Appleton Estate rum factory tour. Note that if you want to eat there you need to call ahead...we did not know so ended up here hungry throughout the tour, and did rum tasting at the end with a empty stomach.  One thing to note, its scary how dirty the factory is with black mold!  Its not wonder you can't take pictures inside.
• If you're not at an all inclusive resort and stroll along the beach to an inclusive resort bar they WILL NOT accept money for payment, meaning you cannot use their bars on the beach.
• Be prepared for an assault of pitches and return a lot of no thank you smiles.
• Watch the sunset from the beach.  The water is this incredible warm milky experience and is shallow for quite a ways out.
• I highly suggest travelling by renting a car.  Google Maps does work, however turn by turn is slightly disabled in Jamaica.  If you travel by tour bus you'll pay a LOT more, expect ~$150pp for a single location...or we paid ~$300 for a couple for a private driver from the hotel for ~3 locations.  And I had to use google maps to let the private driver know how to get to many of the locations <sigh>...so ya, rent a car :)
• Being an island the roads are very curvy.  The coastal road is best kept, and the interior roads a lot less so.  Expect a LOT of pot-holes, and dirt/asphalt transitions.
• But all your alcohol at the international terminal of the airport on your way back.  Its MUCH cheaper and they have almost everything there.  If you have connecting flights leave space in your luggage or  travel with an extra luggage you can check-in with the alcohol. 
• There is a HUGE disparity between the big resorts, and smaller hotels that are next to each other in Negril..so do your research on where you'll be staying and what kind of experience you want.
• Visit "Times Square" in Nigril if you want to but trinkets...the bad part is that almost all the stores have the same things ;)  Another interesting thing we noticed is it seems most of the trinket stores are owned by people from India.
• At most places everyone disappears ~5-6 pm after the sun sets...I guess they're all avoiding the mosquitoes and sand fleas?
• Use repellent at night! 
• Expect the occasional cockroach in your room, eeeww :)  Thus leave your bags closed!