VacationSelector
Whitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum, Palm Beach
Palm BeachWhitehall, Henry Flagler's mansion, now the Flagler Museum
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Palm Beach by Khowald, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Palm 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 Palm Beach for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • 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. Palm Beach 82, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 3 points.
Food & drink. Palm Beach 47, Tamarindo 38: Palm Beach leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Palm Beach 45, Tamarindo 5: Palm Beach leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Palm Beach 32, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Palm Beach 58, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Palm Beach 55, Tamarindo 28: Palm Beach leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Palm Beach 62, Tamarindo 55: Palm Beach leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Palm Beach and Tamarindo are level on 32.
Shopping & style. Palm Beach 66, Tamarindo 18: Palm Beach leads by 48 points.
Affordability. Palm Beach 12, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Palm Beach 45, Tamarindo 10: Palm Beach leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Palm Beach 55, Tamarindo 45: Palm Beach leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Palm Beach and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Palm Beach
Best match
49match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on prices 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.

Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
29 °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
Palm 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. Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (6.8 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePalm BeachTamarindo
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m27 m
Main airportPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePalm BeachTamarindo
City population9,2457,132
People per km²32257
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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