VacationSelector
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower
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: Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Laguna Beach 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 Laguna Beach for

  • day trips
  • shopping
  • families

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

Choose Santa Teresa, Costa Rica for

  • wellness
  • prices
  • beaches

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. Laguna Beach 72, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 84: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Laguna Beach and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica are level on 40.
Culture & sights. Laguna Beach 27, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4: Laguna Beach leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Laguna Beach 18, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Laguna Beach 73, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Laguna Beach 72, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Laguna Beach leads by 60 points.
Good for families. Laguna Beach 68, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35: Laguna Beach leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Laguna Beach 33, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15: Laguna Beach leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Laguna Beach 46, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Laguna Beach leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Laguna Beach 12, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Laguna Beach 40, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8: Laguna Beach leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Laguna Beach 47, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Laguna Beach and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

Laguna Beach
Best match
46match

Wins on day trips and shopping with your weighting.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
34match

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.

Laguna Beach in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 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
Laguna BeachSanta Teresa, Costa Rica

Where the figures come from

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. Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre). Santa Teresa, Costa Rica: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puntarenas (51.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLaguna BeachSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation6 m19 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLaguna BeachSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
City population23,032-
People per km²907-
Museums within 10 km20
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 Laguna Beach or Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.