VacationSelector
The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San DiegoThe Botanical Building, Balboa Park
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

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

San Diego 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 San Diego for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • prices

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. San Diego 72, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. San Diego 62, Tamarindo 38: San Diego leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. San Diego 50, Tamarindo 5: San Diego leads by 45 points.
Nightlife. San Diego 48, Tamarindo 45: San Diego leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Diego 77, Tamarindo 76: San Diego leads by 1 points.
Day trips. San Diego 60, Tamarindo 28: San Diego leads by 32 points.
Good for families. San Diego 96, Tamarindo 55: San Diego leads by 41 points.
Getting around. San Diego 38, Tamarindo 32: San Diego leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. San Diego 44, Tamarindo 18: San Diego leads by 26 points.
Affordability. San Diego 26, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Diego 56, Tamarindo 10: San Diego leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Diego and Tamarindo are level on 45.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Diego and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

San Diego
Best match
56match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

San Diego in July

24 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 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
San DiegoTamarindo

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. San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan DiegoTamarindo
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
Elevation129 m27 m
Main airportSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan DiegoTamarindo
City population1,386,9327,132
People per km²1,43857
Museums within 10 km260
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month12 months

Where else could you go?

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