VacationSelector
The Royal Palace, Madrid
MadridThe Royal Palace
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Madrid by Mert Ocak, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Madrid 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 Madrid for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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. Madrid 5, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Madrid 80, Tamarindo 38: Madrid leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Madrid 86, Tamarindo 5: Madrid leads by 81 points.
Nightlife. Madrid 85, Tamarindo 45: Madrid leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Madrid 60, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Madrid 89, Tamarindo 28: Madrid leads by 61 points.
Good for families. Madrid 68, Tamarindo 55: Madrid leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Madrid 84, Tamarindo 32: Madrid leads by 52 points.
Shopping & style. Madrid 75, Tamarindo 18: Madrid leads by 57 points.
Affordability. Madrid 50, Tamarindo 36: Madrid leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Madrid 77, Tamarindo 10: Madrid leads by 67 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Madrid 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: Madrid and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Madrid
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Madrid in July

33 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
9 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
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
MadridTamarindo

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. Madrid: 1991-2020 normals, Madrid (1.7 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMadridTamarindo
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation663 m27 m
Main airportAdolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)14 km from centre239 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMadridTamarindo
City population3,506,7307,132
People per km²5,80157
Museums within 10 km880
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
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 Madrid 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. 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. 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.