VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • families

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. Santa Fe 5, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, Tamarindo 38: Santa Fe leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, Tamarindo 5: Santa Fe leads by 61 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, Tamarindo 76: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, Tamarindo 28: Santa Fe leads by 42 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, Tamarindo 55: Tamarindo leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, Tamarindo 32: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, Tamarindo 18: Santa Fe leads by 44 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, Tamarindo 10: Santa Fe leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, Tamarindo 45: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Santa Fe
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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.

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No seasea
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
Santa FeTamarindo

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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.

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. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeTamarindo
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation2,134 m27 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeTamarindo
City population87,5057,132
People per km²64557
Museums within 10 km100
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Santa Fe 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.