Destination

Tamarindo, Costa Rica

Tamarindo, Costa Rica

A big, easy-going Pacific beach town where the river-mouth sandbars groom swell into tidy beginner waves virtually year-round — warm water, board shorts, howler monkeys in the trees behind. Progress fast and Playa Grande's more serious walls are next door. The dry season, December to April, is classic; the green season brings afternoon rain and morning glass.

Featured in Ten surf beaches where beginners actually stand up · Beach