Bob Marley Tours from Montego Bay
Kingston or Nine Mile, four hours or two, and the honest answer to whether either is worth giving up a day of your holiday for.
The choiceTwo pilgrimages, and they are in opposite directions
Everyone who lands in Jamaica with reggae in mind asks the same question, and the honest answer starts with geography. The two places that matter are on opposite sides of the island from each other, and neither is close to Montego Bay.
| Bob Marley Museum, Kingston | Nine Mile, St Ann | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The house he lived and recorded in from 1975 | The village he was born in, and where he is buried |
| Where | 56 Hope Road, uptown Kingston | The hills of St Ann, inland |
| Drive from Montego Bay | 3 to 4 hours each way | About 2 hours each way |
| Shape of day | A long full day, 6 to 8 hours door to door | A full day, shorter than Kingston |
| Photographs inside | Not permitted in the house itself | Restricted in the mausoleum |
| What else you see | Devon House, and Kingston itself | Countryside, and the road up through St Ann |
| Who it suits | Anyone who wants the recording history | Anyone who wants the beginning and the end of the story |
Pick one. Doing both from this coast in a single trip is not a holiday, it is a driving competition.
KingstonThe Bob Marley Museum on Hope Road
The Bob Marley Museum is not a museum in the built-for-purpose sense. It is the colonial-era house at 56 Hope Road that Marley bought in 1975 and lived in until 1980, with Tuff Gong studio in the grounds behind it, and it has been kept close to the way he left it.
The guided tour walks you through the rooms, the gold records, his bedroom and the kitchen. It also takes you past the bullet holes left by the 1976 assassination attempt, two days before the Smile Jamaica concert — which he played anyway, wounded.
Nine Mile: the beginning and the end
Nine Mile is the village in the hills of St Ann where Marley was born in 1945 and where he was buried in 1981. The site holds the small house he grew up in, the rock he wrote about in Talkin' Blues, and the mausoleum.
It is a quieter, rougher, more personal visit than Kingston, and the drive up through St Ann is part of it. From this coast it is around two hours each way, which makes it the more manageable of the two pilgrimages if the day matters more than the recording history.
Devon House, and why the Kingston trip stops there
Almost every Kingston day pairs the museum with Devon House, and it is not filler. The mansion was built in the 1880s for George Stiebel, a Jamaican who made a fortune in Venezuelan gold mining and is generally described as the Caribbean's first black millionaire.
The house and its grounds are handsome. The reason everybody stops, though, is the ice cream, which has been made on the site for decades and has a reputation well beyond the island. Forty-five minutes is the usual allowance and it is enough.
Music at homeReggae in Montego Bay itself
You do not have to cross the island to hear music. Montego Bay is the home of Reggae Sumfest, the largest reggae festival in the world, held here every year and usually falling in July — a week of shows that takes over the city and fills every hotel on the strip.
Outside festival week, the Hip Strip carries live music most nights, and the sound systems that gave the island its music are a working part of ordinary Jamaican weekends rather than a tourist attraction. Ask your driver where they are going on Friday; the answer is usually better than the listings.
Rick's Cafe out at Negril runs a house band through the sunset, and several of the countryside trips build music into the day as a matter of course rather than as a set piece.
The Kingston day, if you want it
A private vehicle, museum admission and the Devon House stop, From $179 per person and free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
So is the drive worth it?
It depends entirely on what you came to Jamaica for. Four ways it breaks down.
- Yes, if Marley is the reason you are in Jamaica. Hope Road is the place the records were made and the attempt on his life happened. Nothing on the north coast substitutes for it.
- Yes, if you want to see the actual island. The drive crosses the interior and shows you a Jamaica the coast road never does.
- Nine Mile instead, if the day is the constraint. Two hours each way rather than four, and the story it tells is more personal.
- Neither, if you have three days. On a short trip the same hours buy you a waterfall, a river and a beach, and the music is on the strip anyway.
Plan Your Trip has the transfer and pickup detail, Things to Do covers what sits closer to home, and the Montego Bay Jamaica Tours comparison table sets the Kingston day against everything else on offer.