Visitor Information

Tourist Offices

Before you go, you can get information from the Jamaica Tourist Board at 5201 Blue Lagoon Dr., Suite 670, Miami, FL 33126 (tel. 800/233-4582 or 305/665-0557).

In Canada contact the office in Toronto at 303 Eglinton Ave. E., Suite 200, Toronto, ON M4P IL3 (tel. 800/465-2624 or 416/482-7850). Brits can contact the London office: 1-2 Prince Consort Rd., London SW7 2BZ (tel. 020/7225-9090; www.visitjamaica.com).

Info on the Web

The Internet is a great source of travel information. Jamaica is on the Internet at www.visitjamaica.com; www.jamaican.com; www.jamaicatravelnet.com; www.jamaica-guide.info. In addition, Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), Excite (www.excite.com), Lycos (www.lycos.com), and the other major Internet indexing sites all have subcategories for travel, country/regional information, and culture -- click on all three for links to travel-related websites.

Other good clearinghouse sites for information are Microsoft Expedia (www.expedia.com) and Travelocity (www.travelocity.com).

You might also check out "The Unofficial Website on Jamaica" (www.jamaicans.com), the best all-around site, with some good pointers, cultural tidbits, a patois primer, and plenty of humor. This is one of the few Jamaica Web pages that isn't either a blatant ad or just somebody's home page with a few vacation pictures.

Travel Agents

Travel agents can save you plenty of time and money by steering you toward the best package deals, hunting down the best airfare for your route, and arranging for cruises and rental cars. Airlines have cut commissions, though, and most agents have to charge a service fee to hold the bottom line. Agents don't get the same rates from all hotels -- many have special deals with particular hotels that they do a lot of business with. So if one agent turns you down on a hotel, another may still be able to get you a room, and at a different price. In the worst instances, unscrupulous agents will offer you only travel options that bag them the juiciest commissions. Shop around and ask hard questions -- use this guide to become an informed consumer.

If you decide to use a travel agent, make sure the agent is a member of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), 1101 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314 (www.asta.org). If you send a self-addressed stamped envelope, ASTA will mail you the free booklet Avoiding Travel Problems. If you get poor service from an ASTA agent, you can write to the ASTA Consumer Affairs Department at the address above.

You may also want to contact the U.S. State Department for background bulletins, which supply up-to-date information on crime, health concerns, import restrictions, and other travel matters. Write the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 (www.gpo.gov).

Road Maps -- A coastal route designated by an A plus a number encircles Jamaica. It's well marked and easy to follow. More complicated are secondary roads, urban streets, and feeder roads, whose markings sometimes are infuriatingly unclear. Recognizing this problem, the Jamaica Tourist Board has issued one of the best maps of the island, the Discover Jamaica road map. It contains a detailed overview of the entire island, as well as blowups of Kingston, Montego Bay, Negril, Mandeville, Spanish Town, Port Antonio, and Ocho Rios; there's also a very useful street index to Kingston. Get it from any Jamaica Tourist Board office or car-rental agency.

Telephones

If you're in the United States, you dial Jamaica like you're calling a neighboring town. First dial 1, then the Jamaican area code of 876. Because of massive fraud, many American phone companies, notably MCI, won't allow credit card calls to be placed from Jamaica. To get around that, you can buy Jamaican phone cards which are available in most stores on the island.

It's true that most hotels feature direct-dial service. But what unsuspecting visitors often don't realize is that you have to pay hefty service charges when it comes time to settle your hotel bill. There remain pay phone booths in most towns, but any call from town to town on the island is considered long distance. Otherwise rates for local calls are about 15¢ per minute. In contrast, a minute's call to the U.S. averages around 30¢.

GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phones that are equipped with a world roaming service or tri-band most often work along the coast, but not necessarily in the mountainous interior. Cellphones are increasing in popularity in Jamaica, and the charge for a typical minute's phone call is about US$1.50 (75p) per minute.