VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Newport Beach 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 Newport Beach for

  • shopping
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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. Newport Beach 70, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, Tamarindo 38: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, Tamarindo 5: Newport Beach leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, Tamarindo 28: Newport Beach leads by 42 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach 80, Tamarindo 55: Newport Beach leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, Tamarindo 32: Tamarindo leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, Tamarindo 18: Newport Beach leads by 44 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 21 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, Tamarindo 10: Newport Beach leads by 36 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on shopping and day trips with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °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
Newport BeachTamarindo

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. Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNewport BeachTamarindo
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m27 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachTamarindo
City population85,2397,132
People per km²62257
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

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