Overview to Kingston: Travel Guide and Tourist Information

  Sunset over Kingston

Kingston is a vibrant, noisy, and, just occasionally, an unsettling place to visit. As with most major cities, though, by keeping your wits about you and reining in some of your more inquisitive instincts, it provides a fantastic – and manageable – traveling experience.

The city fans out from its large natural harbor, at the tip of which is the once infamous Port Royal, where pirates would congregate to share tales of derring-do on the high seas. Now a small fishing town, a few old buildings still remain and there are plans to turn the area into a living museum.

The Downtown area sits on the harbor front. This is Old Kingston, and it’s also the slightly hairy part. The best option may be to hire a tour guide, who can escort you around the area’s colorful markets and sightseeing attractions (such as the Holy Trinity Cathedral) in relative safety.

Further out towards the rising backdrop of the beautiful Blue Mountains, New Kingston offers a safer haven and the city’s premier attraction: the Bob Marley Museum. Here, commercial high-rises cater for business and pleasure, lending the area a modern and cosmopolitan feel.

For the visitor seeking Kingston’s colonial past, out to the west, Spanish Town is a fascinating hint at the glorious (and scurrilous) age of empires. Its Spanish and English colonial buildings are home to a noisy local market, a town hall square, and St. James’ Cathedral.

In many ways, Kingston is exactly what you’d expect it to be: a bit rough around the edges. But it’s also outrageously colorful, exuberant, extrovert and great fun. Add this to Jamaica’s beautiful beaches and soaring mountains, and you’ve got a seriously tempting proposition.

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