VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Mazatlan 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 Mazatlan for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • 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. Mazatlan 80, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Tamarindo 38: Mazatlan leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Tamarindo 5: Mazatlan leads by 37 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Tamarindo 45: Mazatlan leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Tamarindo 28: Mazatlan leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Tamarindo 55: Mazatlan leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Tamarindo 32: Mazatlan leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Tamarindo 18: Mazatlan leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Tamarindo 36: Mazatlan leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Tamarindo 10: Mazatlan leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 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
MazatlanTamarindo

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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanTamarindo
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation139 m27 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanTamarindo
City population441,9757,132
People per km²-57
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Mazatlan 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.