VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
Fishermen on the rocks at Playa Santa Teresa at sunset, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
Santa Teresa, Costa RicaFishermen on the rocks at Playa Santa Teresa at sunset

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Alanya or Santa Teresa, Costa Rica?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Alanya for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Alanya’s own page.

Choose Santa Teresa, Costa Rica for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Teresa, Costa Rica’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Alanya and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica are level on 84.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 40: Alanya leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4: Alanya leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30: Alanya leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Alanya leads by 50 points.
Good for families. Alanya 70, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35: Alanya leads by 35 points.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15: Alanya leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Alanya leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25: Alanya leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8: Alanya leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 14 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Alanya
Best match
54match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
34match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Alanya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
218 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400500JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaSanta Teresa, Costa Rica

Where the figures come from

Alanya has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Puntarenas.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alanya: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puntarenas (51.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
Official languageTurkishSpanish
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation10 m19 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
City population364,180-
People per km²228-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alanya or Santa Teresa, Costa Rica somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.