VacationSelector
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral
The Metropolitan Cathedral of San Jose, San Jose, Costa Rica
San Jose, Costa RicaThe Metropolitan Cathedral of San Jose

Photos: Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0; San Jose, Costa Rica by Bernard Gagnon, CC0.

Limassol or San Jose, 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 Limassol for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • families

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

Choose San Jose, Costa Rica for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose, 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. Limassol 77, San Jose, Costa Rica 12: Limassol leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Limassol 58, San Jose, Costa Rica 42: Limassol leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Limassol and San Jose, Costa Rica are level on 38.
Nightlife. Limassol 50, San Jose, Costa Rica 40: Limassol leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Limassol 65, San Jose, Costa Rica 78: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Limassol 76, San Jose, Costa Rica 52: Limassol leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Limassol 63, San Jose, Costa Rica 44: Limassol leads by 19 points.
Getting around. Limassol 38, San Jose, Costa Rica 30: Limassol leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Limassol 42, San Jose, Costa Rica 36: Limassol leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Limassol 44, San Jose, Costa Rica 54: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Limassol 32, San Jose, Costa Rica 38: San Jose, Costa Rica leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Limassol 42, San Jose, Costa Rica 28: Limassol leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Limassol and San Jose, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

Limassol
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

San Jose, Costa Rica
41match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

San Jose, Costa Rica in July

28 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
173 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
LimassolSan Jose, Costa Rica

Where the figures come from

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

San Jose, Costa Rica's station stands 241 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre). San Jose, Costa Rica: 1991-2020 normals, Juan Santamaria (16.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLimassolSan Jose, Costa Rica
Official languageTurkish, Greek, Modern GreekSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation10 m1,161 m
Main airportLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinationsJuan Santamaría International Airport (SJO)16 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLimassolSan Jose, Costa Rica
City population107,970335,007
People per km²2,4057,511
Museums within 10 km29
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Limassol or San Jose, 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.