VacationSelector
Barlas Island in Honda Bay, Puerto Princesa
Puerto PrincesaBarlas Island in Honda Bay
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Puerto Princesa by Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Princesa 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 Puerto Princesa for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • day trips

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. Puerto Princesa 58, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Princesa and Tamarindo are level on 38.
Culture & sights. Puerto Princesa 22, Tamarindo 5: Puerto Princesa leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Princesa 26, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 19 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Princesa 80, Tamarindo 76: Puerto Princesa leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Princesa 12, Tamarindo 28: Tamarindo leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Puerto Princesa 45, Tamarindo 55: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Puerto Princesa 30, Tamarindo 32: Tamarindo leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Princesa 20, Tamarindo 18: Puerto Princesa leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Puerto Princesa 78, Tamarindo 36: Puerto Princesa leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Princesa and Tamarindo are level on 10.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Princesa 40, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Princesa and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Puerto Princesa
38match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Puerto Princesa in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
216 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 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
Puerto PrincesaTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Puerto Princesa has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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. Puerto Princesa: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto PrincesaTamarindo
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishSpanish
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation98 m27 m
Main airportPuerto Princesa International Airport / PAF Antonio Bautista Air Base (PPS)2 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto PrincesaTamarindo
City population316,3847,132
People per km²13357
Museums within 10 km10
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 Puerto Princesa or Tamarindo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.