VacationSelector
A yellow tram in a narrow street, Lisbon
LisbonA yellow tram in a narrow street
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Lisbon by Riccardo Toso, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Lisbon 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 Lisbon for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Lisbon 50, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Lisbon 75, Tamarindo 38: Lisbon leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Lisbon 78, Tamarindo 5: Lisbon leads by 73 points.
Nightlife. Lisbon 75, Tamarindo 45: Lisbon leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lisbon 75, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Lisbon 82, Tamarindo 28: Lisbon leads by 54 points.
Good for families. Lisbon 62, Tamarindo 55: Lisbon leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Lisbon 66, Tamarindo 32: Lisbon leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Lisbon 60, Tamarindo 18: Lisbon leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Lisbon 55, Tamarindo 36: Lisbon leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lisbon 60, Tamarindo 10: Lisbon leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lisbon 36, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lisbon and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Lisbon
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

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.

Lisbon in July

28 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
15 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
LisbonTamarindo

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. Lisbon: 1991-2020 normals, Lisboa / Geof (1.1 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLisbonTamarindo
Official languagePortugueseSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation100 m27 m
Main airportLisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS)7 km from centre156 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLisbonTamarindo
City population545,7967,132
People per km²5,45357
Museums within 10 km800
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
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 Lisbon 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). 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.