Dr. No Filming Locations in Jamaica and How to Visit

When you buy through links on this page we may earn a commission. It never decides what we write. How we work.

Dr. No was the first James Bond film, and almost all of its location work was done in one place: Jamaica, the island where Ian Fleming wrote the books. MI6 HQ says director Terence Young began shooting on Tuesday 16 January 1962, with Sean Connery arriving at Kingston’s airport, and that the crew had wrapped in Jamaica by 21 February and moved to Pinewood Studios near London, where filming was due to start on 26 February. Many of the places are still there, from a government house in Kingston to the beach where Honey Ryder walks out of the sea. This guide starts in Kingston, crosses to Ocho Rios and the coast either side of it, and ends at GoldenEye, Fleming’s own house.

Kingston: the airport and the first day

Bond lands at Palisadoes Airport, halfway along the long spit of land that encloses Kingston Harbour. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations says it is now Norman Manley International Airport, Kingston’s airport today, so most visitors to the south coast land at the same airport as Bond, though the 1962 buildings have been altered or replaced. MI6 HQ and 007 Magazine both say this was where filming started: Bond walking out of the terminal and the call from the phone booth. 007 Magazine says Marguerite LeWars, then Miss Jamaica, played the photographer at the airport, and that by the end of the first day just under two minutes of usable film had been shot. Our Kingston page covers the city.

007 Magazine adds that the unit’s base was the Courtleigh Manor Hotel, which also played the outside of Bond’s hotel, and that the location manager was a young Chris Blackwell.

Government House, the Queen’s Club and Harbour Street

Bond’s first call is at Government House. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations and MI6 HQ both say the exterior is King’s House on Hope Road, the official residence of Jamaica’s Governor-General. It is a working official residence, so look at it from the gates unless you are invited in.

The “Queen’s Club”, where Strangways plays bridge before the three blind mice follow him out, is the Liguanea Club on Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston, according to the Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, which says the blind men were filmed on Harbour Street downtown. The Liguanea Club is a private sports club. MI6 HQ says the club’s interiors were built at Pinewood.

Strangways’s house was a real home on Kinsale Street. MI6 HQ says it belonged to Dolores Keator, who also played his ill-fated secretary. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations says the house has since gone.

The Palisadoes and Port Royal

The road out along the Palisadoes past the airport is still the only road to Port Royal, the old pirate town at the tip of the spit. The crew filmed at the Morgan’s Harbour Hotel at Port Royal in January 1962. MI6 HQ says the hotel bar was dressed as Pussfeller’s club, where Bond meets Quarrel and Felix Leiter, and that the brick building and jetty where Bond first questions Quarrel had barely changed. The hotel now trades as the Grand Hotel Excelsior Port Royal, so you can stop for a drink on a drive out from Kingston. MI6 HQ says the bar was stocked with crates of Red Stripe for the fight Felix breaks up.

Red Stripe Jamaican Lager (Dr. No and The Man with the Golden Gun Novel)View the piece

For Jamaica Bond drives a Sunbeam Alpine Series II, and on screen he wears an Anthony Sinclair Conduit suit and a Rolex Submariner 6538.

Sunbeam Alpine Series II (Dr. No)View the piece

Ocho Rios: Miss Taro and Dr. No’s bauxite works

After Kingston the film moves to the north coast and Ocho Rios. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations says the bungalow where Bond visits Miss Taro was at the hotel now called Couples Sans Souci, which the Guide says has been much changed since.

The exterior of Dr. No’s operation on Crab Key was filmed at a real bauxite works, the Reynolds Jamaica Mines loading pier at Ocho Rios, which had been shipping bauxite since 1952. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations calls it the Kaiser terminal, but Kaiser did not build its north coast port, at Discovery Bay, until the late 1960s. Reynolds Pier is still used by cargo and cruise ships. The lair and the reactor room were sets at Pinewood.

Laughing Waters: Honey Ryder’s beach

The most famous shot in the film, Honey Ryder walking out of the sea, was filmed at Laughing Waters, where the Roaring River comes down to the sea about a mile west of Dunn’s River Falls. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations says the waterfalls outside Ocho Rios provide the Crab Key shore where Bond and Quarrel land. MI6 HQ says Fleming watched the filming there, along with his friend Noël Coward, the poet Stephen Spender and the writer Peter Quennell.

Lonely Planet says there is public access on foot, following the river down from the A3 by the power station. The beach is managed by Jamaica’s Urban Development Corporation (UDC), a government agency, and access has changed over the years. In February 2026 the UDC closed it to the public until further notice because of the weather, so check locally before you go.

Dunn’s River Falls

Dunn’s River Falls, the neighbouring falls, is today Jamaica’s best known waterfall. Its official site says the falls run for more than 183 metres, or 960 feet, and that visitors climb them, with a beach, a zip line and a children’s splash pad in the park. It is also run by the UDC, and tickets are sold through the official site. If you want to see the Laughing Waters stretch of coast in a day, combine the two.

Falmouth: the swamp and the dragon

Crab Key’s mangrove swamp, where Dr. No’s “dragon” tank kills Quarrel and captures Bond and Honey, was filmed near Falmouth, according to the Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations. MI6 HQ says Falmouth was also where Bond and Honey shelter on the sand as Dr. No’s men machine-gun the beach. Falmouth is the main town of Trelawny on the north coast, west of Ocho Rios.

GoldenEye: where Fleming wrote Bond

The resort’s own history says Fleming bought the land at Oracabessa Bay in 1946, built the house he called GoldenEye, and wrote all his Bond books in his bedroom there. Three of the novels are set in Jamaica: Live and Let Die, Dr. No and The Man with the Golden Gun.

007 Magazine says Chris Blackwell, the film’s location manager, bought GoldenEye in 1976 from Bob Marley, and it is now the GoldenEye resort. Fleming’s house is let in its own right as the Fleming Villa, which its site says sleeps ten across three bedrooms and two cottages, about 20 minutes east of Ocho Rios and under ten minutes from Ian Fleming International Airport. Smithsonian also points to James Bond Beach at Oracabessa, close by.

Ian Fleming Villa, GoldenEye (Ian Fleming)View the piece

Planning a trip

Kingston and the north coast are on opposite sides of the island, so most visitors split the trip: fly into Norman Manley for Kingston, King’s House and Port Royal, then cross to Ocho Rios for Laughing Waters, Dunn’s River and Oracabessa, with Falmouth a drive to the west. Ian Fleming International Airport serves the GoldenEye end of the coast. A pot of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee makes a good souvenir.

Dr. No was not Bond’s last visit. The series came back to Jamaica for Live and Let Die and again for No Time To Die, which our No Time To Die filming locations guide covers. Our Jamaica travel page lists every Bond location on the island.