VacationSelector
The terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago
SantiagoThe terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Santiago by Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Santiago 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 Santiago for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • 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. Santiago 12, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Santiago 60, Tamarindo 38: Santiago leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Santiago 52, Tamarindo 5: Santiago leads by 47 points.
Nightlife. Santiago 60, Tamarindo 45: Santiago leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santiago 83, Tamarindo 76: Santiago leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Santiago 70, Tamarindo 28: Santiago leads by 42 points.
Good for families. Santiago 57, Tamarindo 55: Santiago leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Santiago 68, Tamarindo 32: Santiago leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. Santiago 52, Tamarindo 18: Santiago leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Santiago 58, Tamarindo 36: Santiago leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santiago 55, Tamarindo 10: Santiago leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santiago 37, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santiago and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Santiago
Best match
55match

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

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Santiago in July

14 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
52 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
10 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
SantiagoTamarindo

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. Santiago: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago Q. Normal (3.1 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSantiagoTamarindo
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyChilean Peso (CLP)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsCL220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4, UTC-3 in summerUTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132911
Elevation575 m27 m
Main airportComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)14 km from centre67 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSantiagoTamarindo
City population6,257,5167,132
People per km²7,46857
Museums within 10 km540
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 Santiago 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). 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. 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.