Tamarindo
Costa Rica
Pacific surf town with jungle at its back
Photo by Darcy Calvin on Unsplash
Photos by Have Fun Do Good, Dominick Legotte, Joseph Piña and Jeffrey Eisen on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Costa Rica
December to April
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 320mm in Sep
Where it is
10.30°N, 85.84°W Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Take a surf lesson on the main beach
- Watch leatherback turtles at Playa Grande in season
- Kayak the Tamarindo estuary
- Sunset catamaran trip
- Day trip to Rincon de la Vieja volcano
- Snorkel at Playa Conchal
Tamarindo travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Costa Rica
ExpensiveUS dollars circulate freely in tourist areas and are quoted for tours and rentals, but paying in colones at local sodas and shops is cheaper. Costa Rica is noticeably more expensive than its neighbours.
ATMs & cards
Banco Nacional, BAC and Banco de Costa Rica machines dispense both colones and dollars. Fees run around $5 per withdrawal for foreign cards. Choose colones and decline conversion.
Avoid these
- machines in surf shops and bars on the main strip
Use these instead
- Banco Nacional
- BAC
- Banco de Costa Rica
Machines dispense both colones and dollars — take colones, and expect around $5 per withdrawal for a foreign card.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Costa Rica
Reasonably safeA relaxed and generally safe town. The real risks are the ocean and petty theft: rip currents are strong on this coast, and belongings left on the beach do disappear. Never leave anything visible in a parked car.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (6 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Tamarindo Estuary — the river mouth, where the rip and the crocodiles both are
- Leaving anything on the sand or in a rental car
- Riptides on the main beach, which is a surf break, not a swimming one
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Costa Rica visa rules
No visa neededup to 180 days
Onward or return travel within the permitted period is required and is genuinely checked at the gate.
Other passports
Visa required in advance
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Costa Rica
Good and affordableRequired to enter
- Yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is present
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
Getting treated
Among the best in Latin America. The public system (Caja) treats emergencies for everyone, and private hospitals in San José are excellent and inexpensive enough that people fly in for treatment. Clinics in tourist towns handle the everyday.
Tap water is safe in most of the country. Dengue is present on the coasts. Rip currents cause more tourist deaths here than anything else.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodA soda is a small family restaurant, and the casado — rice, beans, plantain, salad and a protein — is the best value meal in the country. Ceviche and fresh fish are excellent all along this coast.
Nightlife
A surf town that drinks: sunset on the beach, then a strip of bars, then somebody's house.
- Tamarindo main strip — the bars, all of them
- Playa Tamarindo — sunset, which is the actual event
Closing: 02:30.
A beer in a bar: $3–6
Getting around
Limited- UberWorks here
- DiDiWorks here
- BoltNot here
- From the airport
- San José airport to the centre ₡12,000–18,000
- Against a taxi
- Under the red official taxis. Ride-hailing has never been formally legalised here and has operated anyway since 2015.
Drivers sometimes ask you to sit in front, which is about the law rather than about you.
Time zone and your working day
America/Costa Rica — 2 hours behind you
6 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 11:00–17:00 your time, 09:00–15:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 11:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 11:00–19:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Costa Rica
Why these are Costa Rica's numbers and not Tamarindo's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 1.4× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 65% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Tamarindo, so these are medians for all of Costa Rica. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Costa Rica, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Spanish (Latin American)
- HelloHolaOH-la
- PleasePor favorpor fa-VOR
- Thank youGraciasGRA-syas
- Yes / NoSí / Nosee / no
4 more phrases
- Excuse meDisculpedees-KOOL-peh
- How much is it?¿Cuánto cuesta?KWAN-to KWES-ta
- The bill, pleaseLa cuenta, por favorla KWEN-ta
- Cheers!¡Salud!sa-LOOD
The c and z are said as an s here, not the Spanish "th" — gracias is GRA-syas.
Religion
Catholic
Catholicism is the official state religion, unusually for the Americas, though practice is relaxed.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Say pura vida — it works as hello, thanks, goodbye and everything is fine
- Greet before asking anything
- Respect wildlife distance rules; feeding animals carries fines
- Tip 5-10% on top of the 10% service already added by law
Don't
- Do not call Costa Ricans anything but Ticos, which they use themselves
- Do not swim where there are no flags or people; rip currents kill visitors every year
- Do not leave anything visible in a parked car, anywhere, ever
- Do not expect punctuality — tico time runs late and is not rudeness
Where to stay in Tamarindo
No Holistay rentals in Tamarindo yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Tamarindo on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Daniel Oduber, Liberia LIR
1h 10mfrom the airport· 46 km as the crow flies
70 min by road.
Also worth pricing: San José SJO — four and a half hours, but far more routes.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
