VacationSelector
The church of San Francisco under a blue sky, Quito
QuitoThe church of San Francisco under a blue sky
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Quito by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Quito 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 Quito for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • families
  • 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. Quito 5, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Quito 54, Tamarindo 38: Quito leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Quito 77, Tamarindo 5: Quito leads by 72 points.
Nightlife. Quito 40, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Quito 86, Tamarindo 76: Quito leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Quito 55, Tamarindo 28: Quito leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Quito 32, Tamarindo 55: Tamarindo leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Quito 45, Tamarindo 32: Quito leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Quito 40, Tamarindo 18: Quito leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Quito 78, Tamarindo 36: Quito leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Quito 38, Tamarindo 10: Quito leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Quito 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: Quito and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Quito
Best match
50match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Quito in July

18 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Tamarindo in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
129 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
QuitoTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Quito's station stands 208 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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. Quito: 1961-1990 normals, Izobamba-Santa Catalina (16.8 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureQuitoTamarindo
Official languageSpanish, Shuar, Northern QuichuaSpanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation2,850 m27 m
Main airportMariscal Sucre International Airport (UIO)20 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureQuitoTamarindo
City population1,763,2757,132
People per km²4,73557
Museums within 10 km160
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 Quito 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. 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. 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.