VacationSelector
A cable car over the brick-red houses, La Paz
La PazA cable car over the brick-red houses
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: La Paz by Arabsalam, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

La Paz 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 La Paz for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Santa Teresa, Costa Rica for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

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. La Paz 3, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 84: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 81 points.
Food & drink. La Paz 50, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 40: La Paz leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. La Paz 52, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4: La Paz leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. La Paz 38, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30: La Paz leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Paz 82, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78: La Paz leads by 4 points.
Day trips. La Paz 40, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: La Paz leads by 28 points.
Good for families. La Paz 10, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 25 points.
Getting around. La Paz 45, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15: La Paz leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. La Paz 45, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: La Paz leads by 33 points.
Affordability. La Paz 92, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25: La Paz leads by 67 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Paz 35, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8: La Paz leads by 27 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Paz 12, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 58 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Paz and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

La Paz
Best match
42match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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.

La Paz in July

13 °Cdaytime high
-2 °Cnight-time low
16 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 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
La PazSanta Teresa, Costa Rica

Where the figures come from

La Paz 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. La Paz: 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

MeasureLa PazSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, Quechua, GuaraniSpanish
CurrencyBoliviano (BOB)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAC50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation3,640 m19 m
Main airportEl Alto International Airport (LPB)6 km from centre12 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa PazSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
City population755,732-
People per km²1,601-
Museums within 10 km210
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 La Paz or Santa Teresa, Costa Rica somewhere new.

Browse every destination

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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.