VacationSelector
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cardiff or Tamarindo?

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 Cardiff for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Tamarindo’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. Cardiff 30, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Cardiff 45, Tamarindo 38: Cardiff leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Cardiff 58, Tamarindo 5: Cardiff leads by 53 points.
Nightlife. Cardiff 50, Tamarindo 45: Cardiff leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cardiff 70, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Cardiff 72, Tamarindo 28: Cardiff leads by 44 points.
Good for families. Cardiff 58, Tamarindo 55: Cardiff leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cardiff 66, Tamarindo 32: Cardiff leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Cardiff 50, Tamarindo 18: Cardiff leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Cardiff 46, Tamarindo 36: Cardiff leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cardiff 57, Tamarindo 10: Cardiff leads by 47 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cardiff 27, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cardiff and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Cardiff
Best match
52match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cardiff in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Tamarindo in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
129 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
CardiffTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Cardiff 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.

Cardiff's sunshine is measured 83 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Tamarindo's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Liberia.

Tamarindo 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. Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCardiffTamarindo
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation41 m27 m
Main airportCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCardiffTamarindo
City population383,5367,132
People per km²2,73457
Museums within 10 km90
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cardiff or Tamarindo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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). 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. 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.