VacationSelector
Fishermen on the rocks at Playa Santa Teresa at sunset, Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
Santa Teresa, Costa RicaFishermen on the rocks at Playa Santa Teresa at sunset
Victoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter, Victoria Falls
Victoria FallsVictoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter

Photos: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica by Christopher Crouzet, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Victoria Falls by Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica or Victoria Falls?

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 Teresa, Costa Rica for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Teresa, Costa Rica’s own page.

Choose Victoria Falls for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Victoria Falls’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 Teresa, Costa Rica 84, Victoria Falls 7: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 40, Victoria Falls 24: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 4, Victoria Falls 12: Victoria Falls leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 30, Victoria Falls 8: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 78, Victoria Falls 94: Victoria Falls leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12, Victoria Falls 22: Victoria Falls leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 35, Victoria Falls 38: Victoria Falls leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 15, Victoria Falls 45: Victoria Falls leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 12, Victoria Falls 18: Victoria Falls leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 25, Victoria Falls 32: Victoria Falls leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 8, Victoria Falls 10: Victoria Falls leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 70, Victoria Falls 34: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica leads by 36 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Teresa, Costa Rica and Victoria Falls.

Your match

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

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
Best match
34match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Victoria Falls
29match

Wins on getting around and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
218 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Victoria Falls in July

26 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400500JFMAMJJASOND
Santa Teresa, Costa RicaVictoria Falls

Where the figures come from

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Puntarenas.

Santa Teresa, Costa Rica 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 Teresa, Costa Rica: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puntarenas (51.5 km from centre). Victoria Falls: 1991-2020 normals, Livingstone (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta Teresa, Costa RicaVictoria Falls
Official languageSpanishEnglish, Xhosa, Ndau, Venda, Chewa, Khoisan, Kalanga, Shona, Tonga, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Northern Ndebele, Nambya, Zimbabwe Sign Language, Barwe
CurrencyCosta Rican Colon (CRC)Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzG220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+2
Emergency number911999
Elevation19 m961 m
Main airportDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)113 km from centre30 non-stop destinationsVictoria Falls International Airport (VFA)18 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta Teresa, Costa RicaVictoria Falls
City population-33,060
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Teresa, Costa Rica or Victoria Falls somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.