COSTA RICA IN 14 DAYS

How to see an awesome amount of Costa Rica without stressing it. Routes, hotels, restaurants and top tips.

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THE GOAL

After having wanted to go to Costa Rica for many years we wanted to see as much as possible of the country, but not come home with just memories of being on the road. This took a bit of planning and if you are wanting to do the same, hopefully this article will help!

If you are just interested in one particular area, click on the respective button below.

THE ROUTE

We feel we achieved a good balance by spending a night in San Jose on arrival, then 3 nights in La Fortuna for volcanoes, hot springs and sloths. 1 night in Playa Azucar and 3 in Playa Grande for gorgeous beaches and river safari. Three nights in Montezuma for even greater beaches and snorkelling trips and finally a ferry shortcut across gulf of Nicoya for 2 nights in Monteverde for cloud forest sky walks. Larger image of route HERE

SAN JOSÉ, ARRIVAL

We only spent 24hrs in San José but it's a small capital, so it was enough for a good walk around and try out some restaurants.

We wouldn't recommend staying more than a couple of days though when you've come from afar and there's the jungle beckoning!

LA FORTUNA

La Fortuna is a small town but packed full of bars, restaurants, places to stay and things to do. From our 3 night (2 full days), we can recommend:

The Bogarin nature trail,
La Fortuna Waterfall,
Arenal National park and Volcano hike,
Tabacon hot springs.

The Bogarin trail

The Bogarin trail is a small park on the outskirts of La Fortuna town. You can walk there from where you are staying or, there is parking. The guides are experienced and because of its small size they know where to look for the animals. We saw Sloths, frogs, Toucans, owls, lots of birds and flora. We would really recommend doing a guided tour here and wouldn't actually bother without a guide.

Arenal national park

Arenal National Park. If you have your own transport there is no need to pay for a tour at this park. There is a look out point and then a couple of trails to see different aspects of the volcano. On the trail we saw lots of white faced Capuchin's playing around us in the trees (see gallery end of blog) which turned this into one of the best experiences of the stay.

La Fortuna Waterfall

The waterfall is a drive or a cab ride out of town. We went latish afternoon and it wasn't terribly sunny. Therefore it wasn't particularly tiring going up and down, but can imagine that if it's very hot, going up the many steps would be hard work so take water. There are places to fill your bottle.

The water is cool, but it is fun to take a dip and have a photo. Take water shoes!

Sloth

Capuchin

Fortuna waterfall

Tabacon hot springs

You have to book a time slot (look on their website for the options and prices). Because we weren't sure when we might arrive, we booked a day ticket with a late lunch restaurant slot. The food (a large buffet) was nice, although we only spotted the posh steak and grilled seafood station as we walked out.. :-)

The springs are beautiful, and a lot of care has gone in to the grounds. There were a lot of people, but it is big so you tend to be able to be in a pool without sitting on top of other people, luckily.

The water comes from around the volcano and is 27°C and lovely. There are not a huge number of places to sit around and sunbathe, so we only stayed a few hours.

We think, if we did the trip again, we would have had looked at staying one night in the hotel so that we could have gone back in the evening too.

PLAYA AZUCAR

This off the beaten track beach is beautiful and the water warm with light waves. There are iguanas wandering around the grounds and beautiful birds ready to steal your breakfast.

There are plenty of trees on the beach for shade, which we really needed in the February 38°C heat. Watch out for the rocks which can be hidden when the tide is up so it's best to swim in the middle of the bay!

The restaurant served a varied menu and the food was good. We were able to take a couple of beers back to our room from the bar but there is a fridge there so worth stopping at a supermarket on the way up to get some drinks to put in it! There isn't really anything to do except admire the sunset and plan the rest of your trip.

PLAYA GRANDE

Playa Grande has a a huge beach with plenty of surfers, people using body boards and those just jumping the waves in the lovely warm water. It is definitely worth taking a boat trip on the estuary to see howler monkeys, all sorts of birds and maybe crocodiles. Your hotel should be able to arrange this for you.

The South Playa Grande (Palm beach estates) hotels all have restaurants and there is also a taco bar which is really chilled and good value. This is next to the mini market which sells basic goods such as drinks and snacks but if you pass a supermarket on your way it's a good idea to stop and buy supplies. By 10PM everything is shut here. We stayed 3 nights (2.5 days) and as non surfers we would say this was the perfect amount of time. The sunset is AMAZING and this is probably the busiest time of day when people come with their drinks to watch the amazing fireball sun disappear in to the sea while the surfers are catching the last waves. The beach can only be accessed within daylight hours as it is a protected area for the turtles.

Tamarindo beach can be reached in about 30 seconds on a boat that crosses the estuary for $1 per person. It only runs until about 17.30 though. Tamagringo, as it's also called, is much busier but a nice place to visit for lunch and a wander before heading back to the more peaceful Playa Grande.

MONTEZUMA

After a 5 hour drive, the last hour on really bad roads, it was heaven to arrive and dive into the sea off Montezuma's great beaches. It is an incredibly laid back town, think Key West but smaller or Tulum (it's easy to see how it got its nickname Montefuma). There's however plenty of restaurants and one or two of them will have live music every night.

In addition to the town's own beaches and entertainment, we can recommend a walk to the huge Playa Grande, and taking a snorkelling boat trip. Just browse the options at the tour companies on the main street, or book in advance through your hotel. Do use your hotel room's safe deposit box. We had a camera stolen from our room but apart from that, Montezuma felt very safe.

MONTEVERDE CLOUD FOREST

The Cloud forest is pretty amazing. Being that high and in the wetness of the clouds is something we had never experienced before. But do remember it is colder and wetter than the rest of Costa Rica. Trousers, jumpers and waterproof jackets are order of the day.

We did the hanging bridges tour with a guide in Sky Adventures Park and also the cable car. We opted not to do the zip wire but lots of people, old and young, were doing this too.

It is worth getting a guide for the hanging bridges. The focus here is very much about plants and birds although we did see some monkeys too.

Hotels we stayed in

Hotel Balmoral - San Jose. Basic but in a good location, fine for 1 night.
Casa del Rio - La Fortuna. Lovely rooms, self catering. 15 mins from town. Recommended
Hotel Sugar Beach. Lovely location. Nice big rooms. No Hairdryer. Recommended. Review.
Hotel Cantarana. Lovely, chilled but with everything you want. Recommended. Review.
Hotel Nya. Most sophisticated we stayed in but did feel like it was trying a bit too hard. Recommended. Review.
Selina Monteverde - hostel. Recommend (Mats), Cold and too backpackery (Caroline). Review. Ask for the room with the projector and Netflix!
Trapp Family Country Inn - basic but friendly. Close to the airport. Recommended.

TOP RESTAURANTS BY AREA

Getting around

From the airport to San Jose we found that the easiest thing was to catch a licensed airport taxi. There are people waiting for you as soon as you come out of security. They are on a meter. Uber works well in San Jose as well.

We rented a car and believe that this is the easiest and most flexible way to get around if you want to make lots of stops. It is however not cheap to do this as there are a lot of insurances that you need to take out. Having said that if you do want to travel a lot the shared buses or taxis will also be expensive. Driving down to Montezuma we ran over more potholes than we've seen so far in our entire combined lives, so keep that in mind when choosing cars.

We went for a 4x4 from "Wild Rider". We picked this company because of the lack of bad reviews and that is quite rare on rental companies in Costa Rica. The bad reviews are mainly due to the companies not being transparent about the amount of insurance you NEED to take out when you make the booking on line. Wild rider cars are perhaps a little older than you might normally expect from a rental company but we had no problems at all and were impressed with their service and flexibility.

Waze is worth downloading. It is no better than Google Maps but tells you the speed limit....and this changes frequently and alerts you to police as well as accidents. If you really don't want to hire a car and drive around we think you could do a similar trip to ours by basing yourself in La Fortuna for 1 week and somewhere on the beach for 1 week. Do trips out from these locations and use private transport between the two locations. You could also fly from San Jose to Liberia to get up to the correct area.

March 2020 note: If you're driving from Montezuma to the other side of the Gulf of Nicoya (Monteverde, La Fortuna, San Jose), there are major roadworks between Paquera and Playa Naranjo so we'd recommend getting the car ferry from Paquera instead of driving around. Worked a treat for us and it's a nice break from driving.

Good to know

Early to bed, early to rise! Everywhere we stayed pretty much closed down by 10PM but early morning starts were common place. The right way round if you are coming from Europe!

Colones, Dollars and Credit Cards. Most restaurants, supermarkets etc take credit cards and American Express is widely accepted. Lots of tourist places quote prices in dollars but if you are not coming from the US maybe it is better to just change your currency directly in to Colones.

Roads are great in some parts and terrible in others. We think a 4 x 4 is worth it if you're doing a similar route to us.

Security. Unfortunately the rumours are true and theft is quite common but, violent crime is very rare. Use the safe if you have one and do not leave things in your car.

Fridges. Lots of hotels have empty fridges so do buy drinks & snacks when you see a big supermarket. The hotel bar might close at 10PM.

Monteverde can be surprisingly cold, windy and wet. Go prepared with a jumper and waterproof

Pura vida, buen viaje!
Mats & Caroline