VacationSelector
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Johannesburg by K, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Johannesburg 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 Johannesburg for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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. Johannesburg 5, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Johannesburg 58, Tamarindo 38: Johannesburg leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Johannesburg 56, Tamarindo 5: Johannesburg leads by 51 points.
Nightlife. Johannesburg 62, Tamarindo 45: Johannesburg leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Johannesburg 55, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Johannesburg 52, Tamarindo 28: Johannesburg leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Johannesburg 42, Tamarindo 55: Tamarindo leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Johannesburg 18, Tamarindo 32: Tamarindo leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Johannesburg 58, Tamarindo 18: Johannesburg leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Johannesburg 72, Tamarindo 36: Johannesburg leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Johannesburg 55, Tamarindo 10: Johannesburg leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Johannesburg 28, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Johannesburg and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Johannesburg
Best match
47match

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

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches 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.

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
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
JohannesburgTamarindo

Where the figures come from

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. Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureJohannesburgTamarindo
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation1,753 m27 m
Main airportO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureJohannesburgTamarindo
City population4,803,2627,132
People per km²2,92257
Museums within 10 km140
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Johannesburg 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.