--- title: "Costa Rica travel guide: volcanoes and two coasts | Wimup" description: "Costa Rica: which of the two airports to fly into, how the Arenal, Monteverde and Pacific loop drives, when each coast is dry, what to eat and what to know." url: https://wimup.com/country/costa-rica type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-28 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Costa Rica, two coasts and the volcanoes between Two coasts about four hours apart, a spine of volcanoes down the middle, and **more than a quarter of the territory** inside a protected area. Costa Rica is the country that made **the national park** the reason for the trip rather than a day out from it. ## Quick answer Pick the airport first. **San José** opens the Central Valley, Arenal, Monteverde and the central Pacific. **Liberia** opens Guanacaste and the Nicoya beaches. The standard ten days runs **La Fortuna** for the volcano and hot springs, **Monteverde** for cloud forest, then **Manuel Antonio** or **Uvita** for the coast. Fourteen adds **the Osa Peninsula** and Corcovado, or **the Caribbean** at Tortuguero and Puerto Viejo. Do not try both coasts in a week: the mountain roads are slow. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Dec–Apr Pacific · Sep–Oct Caribbean - **Ideal length:** 10–14 days - **Budget per day:** $70–150 - **Language:** Spanish - **Getting around:** A hired car, shuttles & small planes - **1** City guide - **5,044,197** People - **51,100** km² - **4** UNESCO sites Costa Rica is small on the map and slow on the road, and almost every mistake a first trip makes comes from confusing the two. Two airports open the country and they open different halves of it. Juan Santamaría sits outside Alajuela, twenty minutes from the Central Valley and within reach of Arenal, Monteverde and the central Pacific. Daniel Oduber Quirós at Liberia lands you in Guanacaste, which is where most of the beach itineraries start and where the dry season is driest. Picking the wrong one adds a five-hour transfer to the front and the back of the holiday. The route most people end up driving is a triangle. La Fortuna sits under Arenal, with hot springs fed by the volcano, hanging bridges and the waterfall, and it is the easiest introduction to rainforest anywhere in the country. Monteverde is three hours away over a road that stays rough on purpose, and it is cloud forest rather than rainforest: cooler, wetter, quieter, and the reason the quetzal is on so many lists. The third corner is the central Pacific, where Manuel Antonio packs beaches, capuchins and sloths into the smallest national park in the system and Uvita has the whale tail sandbar to the south. Guanacaste is the fourth option and the one that behaves least like the rest. It is dry forest rather than jungle, brown for half the year, and it holds the beach towns most visitors have heard of: Tamarindo for surf schools and flights, Nosara and Santa Teresa for the yoga and longboard end of it, Sámara for families. South of them the Osa Peninsula is the country at full strength, and it is a commitment rather than a detour. Corcovado is reached from Puerto Jiménez or Drake Bay, guides are mandatory inside the park, and the wildlife density is the highest in Costa Rica by a distance. The Caribbean side is the piece first trips leave out and second trips are built around. Tortuguero is canals rather than roads, reached by boat, and green turtles nest there between July and October. Puerto Viejo de Talamanca and Cahuita, further south, are Afro-Caribbean rather than Central American in food, language and rhythm, and their weather runs on a different calendar: September and October are the two driest, clearest months on that coast and the two wettest almost everywhere else. Two practical things shape every itinerary. Distances are measured in hours, not kilometres, because the mountain roads are single carriageway and slow, and a car with real clearance earns its cost the moment you leave a paved road, which on this trip you will. ## 1 Costa Rica city guide 1. [San José](https://wimup.com/city/san-jose-costa-rica.md): Costa Rica · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 5,044,197 - **Area:** 51,100 km² - **Density:** 98.7 / km² - **Capital:** San José - **Major cities:** San José, Alajuela, Cartago, Heredia, Liberia - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Airports:** SJO San José · LIR Liberia Juan Santamaría, outside Alajuela, opens the Central Valley, Arenal, Monteverde and the central Pacific. Liberia opens Guanacaste and Nicoya. The wrong one adds a long transfer each way. - **Currency:** Costa Rican colón (CRC) Dollars are widely accepted and change comes back in colones, usually at a worse rate than a card. Cards work almost everywhere; carry cash for small sodas, buses and rural stops. - **Language:** Spanish English is common in tourism, and thinner the moment you leave it. On the Caribbean coast you will also hear Limonese Creole, and Bribri and Cabécar in the Talamanca territories. - **Visa:** Visa-free for many passports Many nationalities enter visa-free for a stay the border officer sets, and everyone needs onward travel booked. Rules differ by passport, so check the immigration service site. - **Calling code:** +506 - **Time zone:** UTC-6, no daylight saving - **Power:** 120V · 60Hz · types A & B The same flat two-pin and three-pin sockets North America uses. European and UK devices need an adapter, and anything not dual voltage needs a converter as well. - **Emergency:** 911 One number for police, fire and ambulance, with English-speaking operators. The Red Cross runs most of the ambulance service. - **Getting around:** Rental car, shared shuttle or a small plane A car gives you the country and costs more than the headline rate once mandatory insurance is added. Shared shuttles link the tourist towns. Sansa flies to Osa and Tortuguero. - **Driving:** Slow roads, real clearance Distances are measured in hours. Mountain roads are single carriageway and often unpaved, so a saloon will not reach Monteverde, Santa Teresa or much of Nicoya. Avoid night driving outside the valley. - **National parks:** Book online, and check the closed day SINAC sells timed entry for busy parks such as Manuel Antonio and Poás, and they sell out in season. Manuel Antonio closes one day a week. Corcovado requires a certified guide. - **Tipping:** Already on the bill Sit-down restaurants add a 10 percent service charge by law, on top of 13 percent sales tax. Anything further is optional. Guides and drivers are the two people worth tipping directly. - **Water:** Drinkable in most of the country Tap water is safe in San José and in the main tourist towns. In remote coastal and rural spots, ask locally or filter. - **Health:** Mosquitoes, not altitude Dengue is present in the lowlands year-round and peaks in the green season, so repellent matters most. Yellow fever proof is needed only if you arrive from an endemic country. - **Safety:** Petty theft and the surf Opportunist theft from parked cars and beaches is the common problem: leave nothing visible, anywhere. Rip currents are the real hazard on the Pacific, and most beaches have no lifeguard. - **Wildlife:** Do not feed it Feeding monkeys and coatis is illegal and it is what turns them aggressive around picnic areas. Keep a distance from crocodiles at river mouths and estuaries, which is where people get it wrong. - **Pura vida:** Greeting, answer and shrug It works as hello, goodbye, thank you and "it is fine". Using it is normal, and it is how the country talks about itself. ## When to visit - **Jan** (best): Dry season at its steadiest on the Pacific, and green in the hills - **Feb** (best): The driest month in Guanacaste, and reliably sunny coast to valley - **Mar** (best): Hot and dry, dry forest at its brownest, whales gone until July - **Apr** (good): The last dry weeks, and Semana Santa books out the whole coast - **May** (good): Green season opens: mornings clear, afternoons wet, prices drop - **Jun** (good): Rain settles into a pattern you can plan around. Rivers run high - **Jul** (peak): The veranillo brings a dry spell, and green turtles start at Tortuguero - **Aug** (good): Humpbacks off the south Pacific, and the forest at its loudest - **Sep**: Wettest on the Pacific, and the clearest month on the Caribbean - **Oct**: The same split, more so. Some Pacific lodges simply close - **Nov** (good): Rain eases from the middle of the month, and everything is green - **Dec** (peak): Dry season returns and Christmas fills every coastal town ## 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. The barracks became the National Museum in 1950, and the bullet marks from the 1948 civil war are still in its turrets. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** It is one big rainforest. **Reality:** It holds at least a dozen life zones that behave nothing alike. Guanacaste is tropical dry forest, brown for half the year. Monteverde is cloud forest, cool enough for a fleece. Corcovado is lowland rainforest. Cerro Chirripó climbs to 3,820 metres and freezes at night. Pick between them. - **Myth:** It is small, so you can see it all in a week. **Reality:** It is smaller than West Virginia and slower to cross than that suggests. The mountains sit 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. - **Myth:** The green season is a washout. **Reality:** It rains hard, usually in the afternoon, and mornings are often clear. Waterfalls run, the forest is loud, wildlife is easier to find and rates drop. September and October are hard going on the Pacific and the two best months on the Caribbean. The rest of the green season is a good trade. - **Myth:** It is a cheap Central American backpacker country. **Reality:** It 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. - **Myth:** You will see sloths and toucans everywhere. **Reality:** You 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. - 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. - 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 stands apart. 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. Book that week early or avoid it. ## Famous Costa Rican faces - **Óscar Arias Sánchez**: President twice over, and the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for the Central American peace plan - **Keylor Navas**: Goalkeeper, three Champions League titles at Real Madrid, and the reason 2014 happened - **Franklin Chang Díaz**: NASA astronaut on seven shuttle flights, and the physicist behind the VASIMR plasma rocket - **Christiana Figueres**: Ran the UN climate convention from 2010 to 2016 and steered the Paris Agreement through - **Chavela Vargas**: Born near Heredia, and the voice that remade the Mexican ranchera - **Claudia Poll**: 200 metres freestyle gold at Atlanta 1996, still the country’s only Olympic title - **Laura Chinchilla**: The first woman elected president of Costa Rica, in office from 2010 to 2014 - **Carmen Naranjo**: Novelist, poet and essayist, and a winner of the Aquileo J. Echeverría national prize - **José Figueres Ferrer**: Led the 1948 revolution, then abolished the army and gave women the vote - **Juan Santamaría**: Drummer boy of the 1856 war against William Walker, and the name on the main airport - **Juan Rafael Mora Porras**: The president who raised the army that fought that campaign, on the 1,000 colón note - **Sylvia Poll**: 200 metres freestyle silver at Seoul 1988, the country’s first Olympic medal - **Paulo Wanchope**: Striker in the Premier League and La Liga, and 45 goals in 73 caps for Costa Rica - **Bryan Ruiz**: Captain of the side that reached the 2014 World Cup quarter-final unbeaten in the group - **Joel Campbell**: Forward, an Arsenal signing at 19, and a fixture of three World Cup squads - **Nery Brenes**: Sprinter over 400 metres, and world indoor champion in 2012 - **Clodomiro Picado Twight**: Snake-venom researcher whose antivenom work gave the national institute its name - **Sandra Cauffman**: Electrical engineer, 37 years at NASA, first Costa Rican woman to lead a Mars mission team - **Debi Nova**: Singer and songwriter, a Latin Grammy nominee, and a collaborator across Latin pop - **Maribel Guardia**: Actress and singer, and one of the most familiar Costa Rican faces on Mexican television - **Editus**: Instrumental trio, and three Grammy wins alongside Rubén Blades - **Malpaís**: The band that put calypso, tambito and jazz into a Costa Rican songbook of its own - **Carlos Luis Fallas**: Wrote Mamita Yunai in 1941, the banana-plantation novel and the country’s best-known book - **Yolanda Oreamuno**: Novelist, and La ruta de su evasión in 1950 opened modern Costa Rican fiction - **Joaquín Gutiérrez**: Wrote Cocorí in 1947, translated into ten languages and staged in as many countries - **Francisco Amighetti**: Painter and engraver of over 500 works, the defining Costa Rican artist of his century ## Must-try Costa Rican food - **Casado**: Rice, black beans, salad, fried plantain and a protein. The soda lunch, and great value. - **Gallo pinto**: Rice and beans fried with onion and coriander, for breakfast. Nicaragua claims it too. - **Olla de carne**: Beef simmered with yuca, chayote, plantain and corn. A Sunday soup and plate in one. - **Sopa negra**: Black bean soup with a poached egg dropped in and a hard tortilla on the side. - **Arroz con pollo**: Achiote-tinted chicken rice with vegetables, at every birthday and school fundraiser. - **Picadillo**: A hash of diced chayote, arracache or green papaya with a little meat, eaten in tortillas. - **Tamal**: Corn masa and pork steamed in banana leaf, made by the hundred at Christmas. - **Chifrijo**: Rice, beans, chicharrón and pico de gallo with chips. A 1990s San José bar invention. - **Patacones**: Green plantain fried, smashed, fried again and salted, with black bean dip. - **Chicharrones**: Pork belly fried in its own fat, sold by weight at roadside stalls with cassava and lime. - **Gallos**: A tortilla folded around picadillo, beef or cheese. The milder Costa Rican taco. - **Pejibaye**: Peach palm fruit boiled for hours and eaten with mayonnaise. Starchy, orange, local. - **Ceviche**: Sea bass cured in lime with onion, coriander and pepper, with soda crackers. No chilli. - **Rice and beans**: Limón’s version, cooked in coconut milk with thyme and a whole panameño chilli. - **Rondón**: Caribbean coconut-milk stew of fish, tubers and plantain. Order it ahead. - **Pati**: Limón’s folded pastry of spiced beef, sold from baskets along the coast road. - **Pan bon**: Dark Caribbean sweet bread with fruit and cheese, baked for Easter, eaten all year. - **Tres leches**: Sponge soaked in three milks until it barely holds. Every bakery counter leads with it. - **Arroz con leche**: Rice pudding with cinnamon and lemon peel, served cold in a plastic cup at markets. - **Cajeta**: Milk fudge boiled with sugar and cut into squares, often in coconut or lemon. - **Café chorreado**: Coffee dripped through a cloth sock on a wooden chorreador. The home method. - **Agua dulce**: Raw cane sugar dissolved in hot water or milk. The farm breakfast drink. - **Resbaladera**: Rice and barley blended cold with milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Guanacaste’s horchata. ## Films - [San José Travel Guide](https://wimup.com/watch/san-jose-costa-rica.md), 21:52 ## FAQs ### When is the best time to visit Costa Rica? December to April is the dry season on the Pacific side and in the Central Valley, and it is the reliable answer for a first trip. May to November is the green season: it rains most afternoons, the forest looks completely different, and rates fall. The Caribbean coast runs on its own calendar and is at its best in September and October, which are the two wettest months almost everywhere else. July usually brings a dry spell known as the veranillo. ### Should I fly into San José or Liberia? It depends on where you are going, and getting it wrong costs a day at each end. Juan Santamaría, outside Alajuela and usually called San José, is the right choice for Arenal, Monteverde, the central Pacific and the Caribbean. Daniel Oduber Quirós at Liberia is the right choice for Guanacaste and most of the Nicoya Peninsula. A common pattern is to fly into one and out of the other so you never drive the same road twice. ### How many days do you need in Costa Rica? Ten days is the honest minimum for the classic route: three nights around Arenal, two in Monteverde, three on the central Pacific and the travel between them. Fourteen lets you add either the Osa Peninsula or the Caribbean coast without rushing. A week means picking two places and staying in them, which is a better holiday than a loop driven at speed. ### Do I need a four-wheel drive? For the Central Valley, Arenal and the main Pacific highway, no. For Monteverde, Santa Teresa, much of Nicoya, the Osa Peninsula and almost any lodge reached by a track, yes, and clearance matters more than the four-wheel drive itself. Rivers cross some roads in the green season. Rental quotes look low because mandatory liability insurance is added at the counter, so compare the total. ### Is Costa Rica expensive? It is the most expensive country in Central America and it surprises people who expect otherwise. Imported goods, park fees, guided tours and coastal hotels are where the money goes. The counterweight is the soda, the neighbourhood lunch place, where a casado costs a fraction of a restaurant plate, and the public bus network, which reaches almost everywhere for very little. ### Is Costa Rica safe? Yes, with the usual caveats and one local one. Opportunist theft is the common crime: nothing left in a parked car, nothing left on a beach towel, and no valuables on show in San José at night. The real danger is water. Rip currents drown swimmers every year on unpatrolled Pacific beaches, and crocodiles live in river mouths that look like calm swimming spots. ## Related countries - [United States](https://wimup.com/country/united-states.md) - [Canada](https://wimup.com/country/canada.md) - [All of North America](https://wimup.com/north-america) Part of [North America](https://wimup.com/north-america.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.visitcostarica.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://www.migracion.go.cr/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [National parks](https://www.sinac.go.cr/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.