Pick the airport first, because it decides the shape of the trip. San José (Juan Santamaría) opens the Central Valley, Arenal, Monteverde and the central Pacific. Liberia opens Guanacaste and the Nicoya beaches, and saves five hours if the beach is the point. The standard first trip runs La Fortuna for the volcano and the hot springs, Monteverde for cloud forest, then down to Manuel Antonio or Uvita for the coast, which is ten days at a pace that leaves time to look at things. Fourteen days adds either the Osa Peninsula, where Corcovado holds the densest wildlife in the country, or the Caribbean, where Tortuguero, Cahuita and Puerto Viejo run on a different climate and a different culture. Do not try to do both coasts in a week: the mountain roads are slow, and the drive is the thing that ruins short itineraries here.
1 Costa Rica city guide
Fun fact
Costa Rica has had no standing army since 1 December 1948, when José Figueres Ferrer took a mallet to a wall of the Bellavista barracks in San José, and Article 12 of the 1949 constitution has banned a permanent one ever since. The barracks became the National Museum in 1950 and still stands on the Plaza de la Democracia with bullet marks from the 1948 civil war in its turrets, which makes it the rare national museum whose own walls are the exhibit.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt holds at least a dozen distinct life zones and they behave nothing alike. Guanacaste is tropical dry forest and turns brown for half the year. Monteverde is cloud forest, cool and wet enough for a fleece. Corcovado is lowland rainforest. Cerro Chirripó climbs to 3,820 metres and freezes overnight. Choosing between them is the actual planning problem.
The realityIt is smaller than West Virginia and it takes far longer to cross than that suggests. The mountains are in the middle, the roads over them are single carriageway, and a 150 kilometre transfer is routinely four hours. A week is two places, well seen. Trying for five is how people spend a holiday in a car.
The realityIt rains hard, usually in the afternoon, and the mornings are frequently clear. Waterfalls run properly, the forest is loud, wildlife is easier to find, and rates drop sharply. September and October are genuinely difficult on the Pacific, and are the two best months on the Caribbean. The rest of the green season is a good trade.
The realityIt is the most expensive country in the region. Park entry, guides, private transfers and coastal hotels all price at what international visitors will pay. The country is affordable if you eat in sodas and take public buses, and it is not if you book the itinerary a brochure sells.
The realityYou will see a great deal if someone shows you, and much less if nobody does. A sloth is a grey mass 20 metres up a tree, and the guides at Manuel Antonio, Corcovado and Monteverde carry the scope that turns it into an animal. Hiring one for a first walk changes what the whole trip looks like.
Cultural notes worth knowing
- The soda is the institution to learn. A soda is a small family restaurant serving a casado at lunch for a fraction of a tourist menu, and it is where the food is best. Look for a plastic-chair place full of people at noon.
- Ticos are indirect, and a flat "no" is rare. A vague "quizás" or a long explanation often is the no. Pressing for a firmer answer reads as rude rather than efficient.
- Addresses are given from a landmark, not a street number. Directions come as "200 metres north of the church, house with the green gate", and 100 metres means one block whether or not it measures one.
- Greet people before you ask for anything. A "buenas" as you walk into a shop or approach a counter is expected, and going straight to the question lands badly.
- The Caribbean coast is a different country in every way that matters. Limón province is Afro-Caribbean, English Creole is spoken alongside Spanish, the food is coconut-based, and the rhythm is slower again. Treat it as its own destination.
- Do not photograph indigenous people or their homes without asking. The Bribri, Cabécar, Boruca and other territories receive visitors on their own terms, and the good visits are the ones booked through the community.
- Sunday is family day and Semana Santa is close to total. Buses thin out, offices shut, and in Holy Week the coast fills with Costa Ricans rather than foreigners. Book that week early or avoid it.
Famous Costa Rican faces
Óscar Arias Sánchez
Keylor Navas
Franklin Chang Díaz
Christiana Figueres
Chavela Vargas
Claudia Poll
Laura Chinchilla
Carmen Naranjo
José Figueres Ferrer
Juan Santamaría
Juan Rafael Mora Porras
Sylvia Poll
Paulo Wanchope
Bryan Ruiz
Joel Campbell
Nery Brenes
Clodomiro Picado Twight
Sandra Cauffman
Debi Nova
Maribel Guardia
Editus
Malpaís
Carlos Luis Fallas
Yolanda Oreamuno
Joaquín Gutiérrez
Francisco Amighetti
Must-try Costa Rican food
Gallo pinto
Rice and beans fried together with onion, sweet pepper and coriander. Breakfast, with eggs and natilla, and the dish the country argues with Nicaragua about.
Olla de carne
Beef simmered with yuca, chayote, plantain and corn until the broth carries all of it. A Sunday dish, served as soup and plate at once.
Chifrijo
Rice, beans, chicharrón and pico de gallo layered in a bowl with tortilla chips. Invented in a San José bar in the 1990s and now everywhere.
Chicharrones
Pork belly fried in its own fat, sold by weight at roadside stalls with cassava and lime.
Rice and beans
Not gallo pinto. Limón cooks the two together in coconut milk with thyme and a whole panameño chilli, and the result is a different dish entirely.
Arroz con leche
Rice pudding with cinnamon and lemon peel, served cold in a plastic cup at markets.
Cajeta
Milk fudge boiled down with sugar until it sets, cut into squares and sold beside the till. Coconut and lemon versions are common.
Casado
Rice, black beans, salad, fried plantain and a protein on one plate. The lunch every soda in the country serves, and the best value on any menu.
Sopa negra
Black bean soup with a poached egg dropped into it and a hard tortilla on the side. Cheap, filling and better than it sounds.
Arroz con pollo
Chicken rice tinted with achiote and vegetables, served at every birthday and every school fundraiser.
Picadillo
A hash of one vegetable diced small, most often chayote, arracache or green papaya, cooked with a little meat and eaten in tortillas.
Tamal
Corn masa with pork wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. Made in batches at Christmas, when families work through hundreds of them.
Patacones
Green plantain fried, smashed flat and fried again, salted hard and eaten with black bean dip.
Gallos
A single tortilla folded around whatever the kitchen has: picadillo, beef, cheese. The Costa Rican answer to the taco, and milder.
Pejibaye
Peach palm fruit, boiled for hours and eaten with mayonnaise. Starchy, orange and completely local.
Ceviche
Sea bass cured in lime with onion, coriander and sweet pepper, served cold with soda crackers. No chilli, and no sweet potato.
Rondón
A Caribbean coconut-milk stew of fish, tubers and plantain, named for what the cook ran down to put in it. Order it ahead.
Pati
A folded pastry of spiced beef, Limón’s own snack, sold from baskets and bakery counters along the coast road.
Pan bon
Dense, dark Caribbean sweet bread with fruit and cheese in it, baked for Easter and eaten year-round.
Tres leches
Sponge soaked in three milks until it barely holds together. The dessert every bakery counter leads with.
Café chorreado
Coffee dripped through a cloth sock hung on a wooden chorreador. Slower than a machine and the standard way to make it at home.
Agua dulce
Unrefined cane sugar dissolved in hot water or milk. Farm breakfast, and what a soda offers when you say no to coffee.
Resbaladera
A cold drink of rice and barley blended with milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Guanacaste’s answer to horchata.