VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
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: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Inverness 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 Inverness for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Santa Teresa, Costa Rica for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • food and drink

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. Inverness 20, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 84: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 64 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 40: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4: Inverness leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78: Inverness leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Inverness leads by 44 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35: Inverness leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15: Inverness leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Inverness leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25: Inverness leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8: Inverness leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 40 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Inverness and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

Inverness
Best match
40match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
34match

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.

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 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
InvernessSanta Teresa, Costa Rica

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

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. Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre). Santa Teresa, Costa Rica: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puntarenas (51.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
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
Elevation7 m19 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
City population47,380-
People per km²2,289-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Inverness 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). 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.