Tamarindo eSIM
In Tamarindo you connect to Kolbi or Movistar, whichever is performing better where you are standing. The median across the country is 31 Mbps. Your data starts working the moment you land, before you reach the immigration hall.
- Networks
- Kolbi and Movistar
- Real speed in Costa Rica
- 31 Mbps median, 7 Mbps for the slowest tenth322 travellers across Costa Rica, rolling 90 days
- 5G
- 4G only
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans that cover Tamarindo
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $9.89 | $9.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $6.63 | $19.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $7.38 | $36.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $5.29 | $52.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $4.59 | $91.89 |
How Costa Rica compares across North America
- Speed rank
- 7 of 10 destinations we sell in North America
- Regional median
- 33 Mbps
- Consistency
- The slowest tenth still reaches 23 percent of the median
- Upstream networks
- 2, Kolbi, Movistar
- 5G
- 4G only
- Next fastest nearby
- Guatemala, 32 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Honduras, 28 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: San Jose, La Fortuna, Tamarindo
- tenth percentile
- 7 Mbps
- Behind these figures
- 322 travellers, rolling 90 days
Landing at Tamarindo Airport (TNO)
- Airport
- TNO / MRTM
- Also serves
- Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport (LIR)
Getting into Tamarindo
- Road from Liberia airport to Tamarindo (LIR)
- Integrated route 1502, San Jose to Playa Tamarindo by the Interamericana, operated by Transporte Inteligente de Guanacaste
Worth knowing about Tamarindo
- Tamarindo's own airstrip is frequently closed during the rainy season because of weather, so a booked domestic hop there is not a reliable arrival plan.
- TNO takes only domestic flights, from San Jose and Liberia, on Aerobell, Sansa and Skyway - international arrivals must come through Liberia (LIR) or San Jose.
- The nearest international gateway, Liberia's Daniel Oduber Quiros airport, is 11 km west-southwest of Liberia city and is the usual arrival point for Guanacaste beach towns.
- Costa Rica's free public wifi is branded Zii. SUTEL says you select the network Zii_para_todos, open a browser, accept the terms of use and privacy policy, then browse. No phone number or SMS code is asked for.
- SUTEL limits each Zii session to 2 hours in public spaces and 4 hours in libraries, with reconnection allowed if demand permits. Each user gets 6 Mbps up and down, and the service runs 24 hours a day.
- A Zii hotspot covers roughly 75 square metres and carries 100 simultaneous users, so it is a plaza sized hotspot you must stand in, not town wide coverage.
- SUTEL's published list of the 513 Zii sites includes one inside Tamarindo itself, entered as Santa Cruz, Tamarindo, Plaza Villa Real, in Guanacaste province.
- The Zii network was built by FONATEL, the national telecommunications fund, and reaches 513 public spaces including more than 400 parks and plazas, 61 public libraries and 28 train stations.
- SUTEL runs a free platform for registering a prepaid line at registroprepago.sutel.go.cr. It accepts a passport from foreigners, and confirms identity with a code sent by SMS to the line itself.
- Guanacaste Airport lists only authorised taxi and shuttle partners for onward travel and names each one. It publishes no scheduled public bus from the terminal.
- The airport tells arriving passengers to use only authorised transport, identified by official credentials, company uniforms and registered vehicles.
- The public transport regulator CTP merged five Guanacaste services into a single integrated route 1502 from 28 May 2022, awarded to Transporte Inteligente de Guanacaste with 14 wheelchair ramp buses.
- The CTP approved Tamarindo bus terminal sits next to Plaza Tamarindo on Avenida Central, between Calle Cardinal and Callejon Oeste. The San Jose end is Terminal Transnica on Calle 22.
- In its 2022 authorisation the CTP listed three daily San Jose to Playa Tamarindo departures by the Interamericana at 08:30, 11:30 and 16:00, returning at 03:30, 07:00 and 14:00.
- The paved approach to Tamarindo is National Route 155, 32.765 km long, running through the Belen district of Carrillo and the Tempate, Cartagena, Cabo Velas and Tamarindo districts of Santa Cruz.
- MOPT rebuilt the Huacas junction in 2025, where National Routes 155 and 180 meet. It is the turning point that all Belen, Villarreal and Brasilito traffic for the Tamarindo beaches passes through.
- Tamarindo is a district of Santa Cruz canton with 7,132 residents at the 2022 census, 27 metres above sea level, spread across 125.86 square kilometres.
Sources for this page
Other cities in Costa Rica we cover
- La Fortuna
- 132 km from Tamarindo, nearest airport FON
- San Jose
- 196 km from Tamarindo, nearest airport SYQ