VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
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: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Oaxaca 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 Oaxaca for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Oaxaca’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. Oaxaca 5, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 84: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 40: Oaxaca leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4: Oaxaca leads by 70 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30: Oaxaca leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Oaxaca leads by 53 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35: Oaxaca leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15: Oaxaca leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12: Oaxaca leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25: Oaxaca leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8: Oaxaca leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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.

Oaxaca in July

28 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
80 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 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

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400500JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaSanta 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. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Santa Teresa, Costa Rica: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puntarenas (51.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,555 m19 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaSanta Teresa, Costa Rica
City population258,913-
People per km²3,028-
Museums within 10 km100
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 Oaxaca 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.