VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
Fishermen on the rocks at Playa Santa Teresa at sunset, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
Santa Teresa, Costa RicaFishermen on the rocks at Playa Santa Teresa at sunset

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Montreal or Santa Teresa, 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 Montreal for

  • live music and the arts
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Santa Teresa, Costa Rica for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Teresa, 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. Montreal 25, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 84: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 59 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 40: Montreal leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4: Montreal leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30: Montreal leads by 45 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Montreal leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35: Montreal leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15: Montreal leads by 57 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Montreal leads by 48 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25: Montreal leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8: Montreal leads by 68 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montreal and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on live music and the arts and getting around with your weighting.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
34match

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.

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica in July

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

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400500JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealSanta Teresa, Costa Rica

Where the figures come from

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Puntarenas.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 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. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Santa Teresa, Costa Rica: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puntarenas (51.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
Official languageFrench, EnglishSpanish
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation31 m19 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
City population1,895,211-
People per km²3,806-
Museums within 10 km370
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Montreal or Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 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). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.

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.