VacationSelector
The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
San FranciscoThe Golden Gate Bridge
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: San Francisco by Elijah Cobb, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

San Francisco 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 Francisco for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

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 Francisco 25, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. San Francisco 82, Tamarindo 38: San Francisco leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. San Francisco 68, Tamarindo 5: San Francisco leads by 63 points.
Nightlife. San Francisco 58, Tamarindo 45: San Francisco leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Francisco 80, Tamarindo 76: San Francisco leads by 4 points.
Day trips. San Francisco 72, Tamarindo 28: San Francisco leads by 44 points.
Good for families. San Francisco 66, Tamarindo 55: San Francisco leads by 11 points.
Getting around. San Francisco 70, Tamarindo 32: San Francisco leads by 38 points.
Shopping & style. San Francisco 58, Tamarindo 18: San Francisco leads by 40 points.
Affordability. San Francisco 14, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Francisco 76, Tamarindo 10: San Francisco leads by 66 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Francisco 42, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Francisco and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

San Francisco
Best match
59match

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 Francisco in July

22 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
13 °Csea
15 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 FranciscoTamarindo

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 Francisco: 1981-2010 normals, Alameda Naval Air Station (9.1 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan FranciscoTamarindo
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
Elevation16 m27 m
Main airportSan Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 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 FranciscoTamarindo
City population873,9657,132
People per km²1,45557
Museums within 10 km510
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

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