VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Montreal 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 Montreal for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • 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. Montreal 25, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Tamarindo 38: Montreal leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Tamarindo 5: Montreal leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Tamarindo 45: Montreal leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Tamarindo 28: Montreal leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Tamarindo 55: Montreal leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Tamarindo 32: Montreal leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Tamarindo 18: Montreal leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Tamarindo 36: Montreal leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Tamarindo 10: Montreal leads by 66 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Tamarindo 45: Montreal leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montreal and Tamarindo.

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 culture and sights 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.

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

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

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealTamarindo

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. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealTamarindo
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 m27 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealTamarindo
City population1,895,2117,132
People per km²3,80657
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 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). 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. 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.