A Surfer’s Ode to Green Season in Tamarindo
If you were to search for insider tips on the Costa Rica rainy season on your average travel site, you’re likely to come across only one main warning: pack a poncho and, maybe, rebook the whole thing for January. At Iguana Surf Camp, we do things differently, because we’ve spent more than thirty green seasons watching people arrive braced for the worst only to spend their last morning trying to figure out how to stay longer. So, instead of serving up yet another list of reasons to visit (we posted our own, right here), we thought we’d make this more of a love letter to green season, focusing on the incredible things we’d all miss if Tamarindo ever went dry for good.
What Does It Feel Like To Live in Costa Rica in Green Season?
Let’s start the way we always do here in Tamarindo, with an early morning wake-up call. Most green season mornings kick off with sunshine and humidity building slow and steady until the rain arrives mid to late afternoon. Living here, you learn how to read the clouds and the light that tends to flatten out a little. There’s also an extraordinary smell in the air. It’s a very difficult thing to describe but, in essence, you start to smell the rains before even a single drop comes. The howler monkeys feel it way before we do. You’ll hear them howling in unison for a while before the heavens open up for an hour or two.
The downpour has a magical cleansing effect on everything here.
When we talk about green season, we mean its heart: September and October. That’s when the coast turns its deepest green and the rains are at their most reliable, and it’s the two-month window we’d point a surfer friend toward. The temperature barely moves, mind you, sitting near 86°F through the day, so the rain never lands cold. It comes as an invigorating and refreshing relief.
Mornings belong to Grinds and a strong coffee before the first paddle out, and some of our favorite afternoons happen upstairs at Naia, our new rooftop bar, with a sundowner in hand, watching the storm sweep across town like, knowing there’s a good chance the lineup will be epic right before dinner.
Why Is Green Season the Best Time to Surf in Costa Rica?
Green season is when the South Pacific starts to really fire up, a time when southwest swells bring the biggest and most consistent waves our coast sees all year. The wind tends to back off too, so instead of choppy mornings (which is what you might expect), the breaks are big but smooth and clean. And bigger swells, generally speaking, means there are fewer people in the water.
If you were to ask a lifelong local when the best time to surf in Costa Rica is, plenty of them answer without hesitating: green season, by far, when it’s actually sunny and clear most mornings but the line-up is down to just you and your mates.
We’ve laid out the month-by-month in our guide to Costa Rica’s surf seasons, so we won’t rerun all of it here. What we’ll add, though, is that a green season dawn surf is its own kind of bliss. You paddle into a lineup that’s about half the size of a January morning, the water like a mirror and the hills behind the beach are glowing neon green. That’s the version we’d personally pick for ourselves.
If you’re still trying to find your feet on a board, come down the beach and grab a lesson with us.
Can I Visit the Estuary and Jungle if I Visit in Green Season?
Another fantastic green season pro is the wilderness around the Tamarindo estuary, which comes alive like no other time of year. The estuary itself is tidal, part of Las Baulas National Park, so the water rises and falls with the tide rather than the rain, and tours run at high tide so you can push further up the channels. What changes by September is everything around it. The brown, normally arid hills turn deep green within weeks, and the rivers feeding the estuary run full again. The crocodiles and howler monkeys are permanent residents so you’ll see them in any season, but green season simply serves up a greener backdrop. An estuary boat tour is worth booking at any time of year, and that luscious setting makes September a brilliant time to go.
The flat water back in the channels is also where we take guests out on the e-foils when the swell is too big out front. Nights get their own special audio with frogs going mental after every shower and entire colonies of monkeys marking their territory. They all come back for the most nutritious part of the year, and experiencing this burst of life first-hand is unforgettable.
As if that weren’t enough, we also get turtles nesting on the beaches near here through parts of the season too, though the timing tends to shift year by year. Come in and ask us about turtle movements when you arrive rather than trust some date charts. Nature keeps to its own clock, as you might appreciate, so see what’s going on when you set foot in town.
The most important message is that all these things shouldn’t be considered ‘silver linings’ of a wet season visit, the stuff that’s there to entertain you in-between your surf sessions.
For many of us, they are reason enough to visit.
What Do You Do in Tamarindo When It Rains All Day?
That’s probably the question we’re asked more than any other. And, it might surprise you to learn, quite a lot!
Some days, mostly deep in September and October, it does actually just rain. Not the short and sweet afternoon kind, we mean like the all-day kind. We won’t pretend those days are packed with action, but they are also some of the ones we like best. We finally get to sleep past dawn, something we don’t normally do in the dry months. Our newest rooms make sleeping in easy, since the upper floors look straight out over the water and you can watch the whole gray, dramatic show roll across the ocean from bed. Breakfast becomes a slow and leisurely affair with friends and, by 10 am, someone’s dug out a board game to pass away an hour or so.
There are also always new books to read and naps to indulge in, maybe a full spa day (we never seem to have time for those at other times of the year) and we love going into the indoor climbing wall (TamaRocks) for a couple of hours to get a great workout. These are also busy days for organized and guided classes.
In Tamarindo, you can learn to cook local specialties and make chocolate from scratch, create pottery or get some serious yoga and Pilates in. An adrenaline-pumping ATV tour in the mud on a rainy day is oodles of fun. And because we love getting wet, we also think that rainy day surf is iconic in the best ways. It goes without saying that waterfalls and whitewater rafting tours are also at their best at this time of year.
If you want a clearer picture of the wetter weeks before you book, we wrote a straight-talking rundown of what to really expect during rainy season that still holds up in 2026. A rainy day here costs you very little, and slowing down was probably the point of the trip anyway.
Why Do So Many of Us Never Leave in Green Season?
Tamarindo takes a sigh of relief in green season and in many ways we do, too. It delivers peace just before the mad Christmas and New Year rush, giving us some quieter, slower weeks before the town fills up, when the streets, beaches, cafes and restaurants aren’t so full of people. Better yet, we get more time to just stop and talk to one another instead of merely checking in on the fly.
That’s the part guidebooks never get right and you can tell they’re not written by locals. Fewer visitors doesn’t mean less going on, it means Tamarindo gets back to feeling like a true lived-in town. And because we’ve seen how wonderful this time of year can be for visitors, we couldn’t keep the secrets to ourselves.
Most of us at Iguana choose to stick around through the rain, and we think visitors would love it just as much. If you’re looking for a calmer and more contemplative reset somewhere amazing, you will not find a better spot.
About Iguana Surf Camp & Beachfront Hotel
Our surf shop has called this beach home since 1989, which makes the surf side of what we do one of the longest-running in Tamarindo. The hotel is the newer chapter, with the third and fourth floors, plus the rooftop pool and bar, completely new. By now we are part and parcel of the town’s identity. We run a surf camp with various accommodation options, as well as surf lessons for anyone who isn’t staying with us but still wants to learn from the best.
On the side, we offer many different add-ons, with our group excursions and activities running the gamut from rafting and jungle canopy tours to yoga and Spanish workshops, turtle watching and snorkeling tours. Whether you wish to explore Tamarindo in and out of the waves, we’ve got you covered.
FAQ
When is green season in Costa Rica?
The wider Pacific wet season runs May through November, but the green season we mean, and the two months we’d tell you to book, is September and October. That’s when the coast is greenest and the rains most reliable.
Does it rain all day during the Costa Rica rainy season?
Rarely and only in late September to mid-October. Most days, it only rains for a couple of hours in the middle of the afternoon, leaving the early mornings and evenings pretty clear.
Is it cheaper to visit Costa Rica in the rainy season?
Usually, yes. Most accommodation, tours, flights, car rental etc offer low-season discounts, although this could be either with a straight-up discounted price or an offer of a longer stay/more days at the same price. Choose the longer stay, if you can, as this means you can absorb a couple of washout days and still have plenty of dry time to explore.
Is green season the best time to surf in Costa Rica?
It depends on your skill level. Experienced surfers love the bigger swell of green season, although beginners should plan on early morning sessions instead. At Iguana Surf, our instructors always match lessons and locations to the day’s conditions and your skill level anyway so lessons run all year long.
What should I pack for green season in Tamarindo?
A light rain jacket and quick-dry clothes cover most of it, plus reef-safe sunscreen for the bright mornings. You’ll use all of it on the same day!
Are tours and surf lessons still running in green season?
Yes. Water tours generally run rain or shine, and lessons run daily. Land tours occasionally reschedule around heavy storms for safety.
→ Build your trip around the wet season with our week-long Costa Rica surf camp, and come see why we look forward to it all year.
