This section is dedicated to take away all your "I wish someone had told me that before I went!" experiences. This way, you can spend less time settling in, and more time making new friends in your chosen hostel.
Priory, Jamaica, is a small settlement on the north coast of Jamaica, about fifteen kilometers west of Ocho Rios, on the A1 highway. It is in St. Ann's Parish and is well known for its beautiful beach, which comes alive on weekends, when city-dwellers from Ocho Rios and Montego Bay come to party! The beach will be lined with jerk stalls and beer sellers, and the music will go on till the early hours. At other times of the week, it's almost deserted.
Just eight kilometers further west, and you'll find Salem Paradise Beach; two-and-a-half kilometers further is Runaway Beach. These beaches are public and free, and in between, you can find many resorts with private beaches that require an entry fee for non-guests.
Also of interest in Priory is Circle B Farm, a working one-hundred-forty-acre farm that offers tours to visitors. Dunn's River Falls and Park are also just eleven kilometers east of Priory. This is a major tourist site visited by thousands of visitors a year, and is particularly popular with the cruise ships that dock in Ocho Rios and Montego Bay.
In St. Ann's Bay, five kilometers east of Priory, visitors can enjoy horseback riding offered by a family-owned travel agent there. St. Ann's Bay is also the birthplace of twentieth-century political leader Marcus Garvey. He was proclaimed one of Jamaica's National Heroes, and his remains re-interred from London, where he died, to National Heroes Park in Kingston. He appears on the twenty-Jamaican-dollar coin and there is a small monument to him in St. Ann's Bay.
There are many choices for accommodation along this stretch of coast, but the area is lacking in Priory, Jamaica hostels. You can opt for a bed-and-breakfast or base yourself in Ocho Rios, where the nearest backpacker hostel to Priory can be found. It is a short and easy journey by route (shared) taxi from Ocho Rios to Priory Beach. Montego Bay and Ironshore, a further eighty kilometers west, also have a selection of backpacker hostels within easy reach of Priory by route taxi.
Written by local expertz for Priory
LondonroadMa
