VacationSelector
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach
Playa Tamarindo, Tamarindo
TamarindoPlaya Tamarindo

Photos: St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License; Tamarindo by Jarle Naustvik, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

St. Pete Beach 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 St. Pete Beach for

  • day trips
  • families
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Pete Beach’s own page.

Choose Tamarindo for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife
  • prices

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. St. Pete Beach 87, Tamarindo 85: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. St. Pete Beach 40, Tamarindo 38: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. St. Pete Beach 18, Tamarindo 5: St. Pete Beach leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. St. Pete Beach 28, Tamarindo 45: Tamarindo leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. St. Pete Beach 57, Tamarindo 76: Tamarindo leads by 19 points.
Day trips. St. Pete Beach 58, Tamarindo 28: St. Pete Beach leads by 30 points.
Good for families. St. Pete Beach 72, Tamarindo 55: St. Pete Beach leads by 17 points.
Getting around. St. Pete Beach 30, Tamarindo 32: Tamarindo leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. St. Pete Beach 20, Tamarindo 18: St. Pete Beach leads by 2 points.
Affordability. St. Pete Beach 32, Tamarindo 36: Tamarindo leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. St. Pete Beach 20, Tamarindo 10: St. Pete Beach leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. St. Pete Beach 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: St. Pete Beach and Tamarindo.

Your match

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

St. Pete Beach
Best match
42match

Wins on day trips and families with your weighting.

Tamarindo
39match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

St. Pete Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
185 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 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
St. Pete BeachTamarindo

Where the figures come from

St. Pete Beach 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.

St. Pete Beach's sunshine is measured 34 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

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. St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre). Tamarindo: 1991-2020 normals, Liberia (53.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSt. Pete BeachTamarindo
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
Elevation2 m27 m
Main airportSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsDaniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR)43 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSt. Pete BeachTamarindo
City population8,8797,132
People per km²17357
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow St. Pete Beach 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.