VacationSelector
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Laguna Beach 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 Laguna Beach for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • beaches

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. Laguna Beach 72, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Laguna Beach 40, Tamarindo 38: Laguna Beach leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Laguna Beach 27, Tamarindo 5: Laguna Beach leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Laguna Beach 18, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. Laguna Beach 73, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Laguna Beach 72, Tamarindo 28: Laguna Beach leads by 44 points.
Good for families. Laguna Beach 68, Tamarindo 55: Laguna Beach leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Laguna Beach 33, Tamarindo 32: Laguna Beach leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. Laguna Beach 46, Tamarindo 18: Laguna Beach leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Laguna Beach 12, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Laguna Beach 40, Tamarindo 10: Laguna Beach leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Laguna Beach 47, Tamarindo 45: Laguna Beach leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Laguna Beach and Tamarindo.

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 live music and the arts with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on nightlife 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
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Tamarindo in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
129 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Laguna BeachTamarindo

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. Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLaguna BeachTamarindo
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 m27 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLaguna BeachTamarindo
City population23,0327,132
People per km²90757
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 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.