VacationSelector
Savannah City Hall and its golden dome, Savannah
SavannahSavannah City Hall and its golden dome
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: Savannah by Chris M Morris, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Savannah 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 Savannah for

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

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

Choose Tamarindo for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • 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. Savannah 55, Tamarindo 85: Tamarindo leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Savannah 58, Tamarindo 38: Savannah leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Savannah 68, Tamarindo 5: Savannah leads by 63 points.
Nightlife. Savannah 52, Tamarindo 45: Savannah leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Savannah 48, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Savannah 60, Tamarindo 28: Savannah leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Savannah 50, Tamarindo 55: Tamarindo leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Savannah 58, Tamarindo 32: Savannah leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Savannah 42, Tamarindo 18: Savannah leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Savannah 35, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Savannah 40, Tamarindo 10: Savannah leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Savannah 40, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Savannah and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

Savannah
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on beaches 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.

Savannah in July

34 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
144 mmrain in the month
29 °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
SavannahTamarindo

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. Savannah: 1991-2020 normals, Savannah Airport (9.9 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSavannahTamarindo
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Costa Rican Colon (CRC)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation15 m27 m
Main airportSavannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)12 km from centre39 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSavannahTamarindo
City population147,7807,132
People per km²52457
Museums within 10 km190
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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