The Tamarindo surf guide

Welcome to Tamarindo

Surfing in Tamarindo

Tamarindo is on the Guanacaste coast, and it is where a very large share of first Costa Rican waves happen. A sand-bottomed beach break going left and right, warm all year, with a school on every corner.

• 2spots

The figure that explains the town is one that looks like a criticism. In January, its best month, Tamarindo is clean two or three days out of thirty and too small the other twenty-seven. For someone chasing size that reads as a write-off. For someone learning it is the entire point: a beach that is small nine days in ten is a beach where a first week is not frightening.

Playa Negra, twenty minutes south, is the step up when it stops being enough, and it is a different proposition: a point with urchins and rocks in the line-up.

Welcome home.

Explore Tamarindo

• 2 spotsSurf spotsThe waves worth the trip
• Seasonal guideWhen to goMonth by month
• PracticalGetting thereFlights and transfers