VacationSelector
Surfers Paradise from Narrowneck Beach, Gold Coast
Gold CoastSurfers Paradise from Narrowneck Beach
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Gold Coast by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Gold Coast 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 Gold Coast for

  • families
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • wellness
  • prices

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. Gold Coast 92, Tamarindo 85: Gold Coast leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Gold Coast 47, Tamarindo 38: Gold Coast leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Gold Coast 15, Tamarindo 5: Gold Coast leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Gold Coast 55, Tamarindo 45: Gold Coast leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Gold Coast 82, Tamarindo 76: Gold Coast leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Gold Coast 52, Tamarindo 28: Gold Coast leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Gold Coast 89, Tamarindo 55: Gold Coast leads by 34 points.
Getting around. Gold Coast 45, Tamarindo 32: Gold Coast leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Gold Coast 40, Tamarindo 18: Gold Coast leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Gold Coast 35, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Gold Coast 30, Tamarindo 10: Gold Coast leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Gold Coast 42, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 3 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Gold Coast and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Gold Coast
Best match
52match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on wellness and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Gold Coast in July

22 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
11 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
Gold CoastTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Gold Coast's sunshine is measured 75 km from the centre, at Brisbane Airport.

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. Gold Coast: 1991-2020 normals, Gold Coast Seaway (13 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGold CoastTamarindo
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10UTC-6
Emergency number000911
Elevation12 m27 m
Main airportGold Coast Airport (OOL)20 km from centre19 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGold CoastTamarindo
City population607,6657,132
People per km²43357
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Gold Coast 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.