VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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. New Orleans 14, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 71 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Tamarindo 38: New Orleans leads by 46 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Tamarindo 5: New Orleans leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Tamarindo 45: New Orleans leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 34 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Tamarindo 28: New Orleans leads by 24 points.
Good for families. New Orleans and Tamarindo are level on 55.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Tamarindo 32: New Orleans leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Tamarindo 18: New Orleans leads by 36 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Tamarindo 36: New Orleans leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Tamarindo 10: New Orleans leads by 70 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

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.

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Tamarindo in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansTamarindo

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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansTamarindo
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation-2 m27 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansTamarindo
City population383,9977,132
People per km²42357
Museums within 10 km160
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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