Shake the salt from your hair and ready the wax – the wave-washed town of Tamarindo is the place to be for surfers on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It spills down to a saffron-tinted beach through pockets of leaning palm trees, anchored on rows of bamboo bars that echo reggae and slosh with cold sunset beers when the evening sets in. Sounds perfect, eh?

Some say the years haven't been kind to Tamarindo. Once a lonely fishing village and hidden surfer paradise, it's now packed with bopping bars and wave-riding schools. But there's charm to it all, with just a touch of hedonism running through the shacks of Calle Central each night. What's more, there's still time to channel Tico R&R in excess. Start the day with a bout of yoga on the rocks, head for a papaya juice for breakfast and then just kick back in a swinging hammock on the playa if that's what you prefer.

Countless Tamarindo tour guides await in the center. They offer all sorts of activities. Diving in the reefs and blue holes of Tamarindo Bay? That's doable. Surf lessons for experts on the roaring barrels of El Estero? Sorted. The national parks to the north and south are also a must; lonely enclaves of coastal rainforest, home to howler monkeys, leatherback turtles and river crocodiles.