Chasing Waterfalls in Costa Rica - Travel Vlog

This is Costa Rica, a mystical land filled with beauty and excitement. From turquoise waterfalls to pristine beaches to misty mountains and so much more, this gem of Central America should be high up on anyone's destination list. I spent nearly a month in this beautiful country and now I'm here to take you along for the journey. I started my travels in the Nicoya Peninsula, the westernmost landmass jetting into the Pacific. This is one of the most peaceful places I've ever been and tranquility filled the atmosphere. Nicoya is one of the planet's five blue zones, meaning that the people here have abnormally long lifespans and after spending some time here, it's not hard to see why. One thing I loved about this place is how much the people here value well-being and relaxation. It's so different from the fast-paced life we so often live in the U.S. and I loved everything about it. One incredible person I met here is Mikey, a Swiss-born surfer who calls Costa Rica home. He lives life to the fullest and is everything Pura Vida is all about. Once I was done on the Nicoya Peninsula, I headed back to mainland Costa Rica by ferry. There's something to be found in every kilometer of the rocky Pacific coastline. It's kind of like a tropical version of the Oregon coast and I absolutely loved it. But Costa Rica is so much more than just beaches, so from here I headed inland to the mountains, one of the most mystical places in Latin America. A mysterious fog always seems to be looming over the landscape and the deeper inland you go, the more beautiful it becomes. My next stop was the Diamante Valley, home of 200 meter tall Diamante Falls, the tallest waterfall in Costa Rica. This is where I met up with Kimberly, a friend of mine from cliff jumping who's the back flippiest girl I know. She was working in training at a local trapeze school, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to meet up. This day was also my birthday, so we wanted to do something fun. There's no better way to celebrate another lap around the sun than by paragliding over the rainforest of Costa Rica, so that's exactly what we did. We're on the ground, we survived, let's go! How was it? Incredible. I'm pretty sure I want to learn how to fly on my own now. Definitely beats driving to the beach. Oh yeah. That's where I take it. I just want to take like a paraglide everywhere. Just when I thought this day couldn't get any crazier, we headed out to go rappel down a waterfall. We are going to go to some waterfall and do a bunch of crazy trapeze-y, dangling in the air monkey stuff. Kimberly was gearing up to do acrobatics while dangling on the side of the waterfall. It looked absolutely next level and was a whole new way to live life on the edge. So what's this right here? It's a Momochino. Momochino. Do you just like munch down onto it? You open it up, so bite it to open it and then take... nope. We spent the next morning at Airborne Arts, the trapeze school that Kim was training at. It's in such a beautiful location and it was just fun getting to spend some time out here. After a pretty chill morning, I checked out morning trapeze practice and it was dope. The next day we rented a car and headed west towards La Fortuna. The Arenal volcano slowly came into view and we were so excited to explore this region. So I was out here droning and then this officer came over and I thought he was gonna say something about my droning, but he loved it and said he wanted to show us a cooler place. So we're going to a very beautiful place right now. And just like that, we started following a 12-year-old cop to lord knows where. All right, so we're going down into the jungle. And a miner he was indeed. So where he ended up taking us was this crazy cool little villa thing with a pool out back that's overlooking the entire city of La Fortuna. We wasted no time the next morning and took a trip to La Fortuna waterfall. There are hundreds of turquoise blue waterfalls in this country and yet every single one somehow manages to be unique and different from the last. It's just another reason to love Costa Rica. Next up, it was time for hot springs. All right, so we're currently on our way to the free hot springs here near Arenal. But this wasn't any hot spring. The stream flowed straight out of a volcano so the river was the hot spring. You could sit anywhere in it and be perfectly warm. So we have a new player in the game right here. New character unlocked. So we were back at the hostel and I ran into this dude and he was saying that he was just taking buses all over the place. And honestly, I know that feeling all too well. And throughout my travels, I've had so many people be super generous and offer to let me ride with them to cool spots and whatnot. So returning the favor. And we're gonna drive him to Rio Celeste with us. So tell us about yourself. Jack from Iowa. My name is Jack. I'm from Ames, Iowa. Nice. All right, so our first plan for today is we're gonna go try to find this little rope swing down the river here. Oh, this looks nice. All right, here it is. Right there. I'm going. They want me to go first because I'm some guinea pig or something because I've got all the jumps. So have you done a backflip before? First time. Full send. First backflip. Full send. We did it. Now that our new crew member was initiated into the backflip club, we headed out to Rincon de la Vieja National Park, a beautiful area in northwestern Costa Rica. The first stop here was this little slot canyon where Kim did some flippy stuff. It seemed pretty sketchy to me, but you know what? If backflip girl's happy, I'm happy. Then we headed which is a beautiful turquoise waterfall right at the base of the Rincon volcano. This was one of the more tucked away waterfalls we experienced which made it just that much more fun. And it was great seeing Jack slowly become more of a daredevil. There's this dude over here selling some red fruit. So Jack's gonna run out there and go grab us some of whatever he has because we like trying new exotic fruits. All right, this is our first time ever trying a water apple. It's called interesting. At this point we realized that we were right next to the Nicaraguan border, so we thought we'd devise a plan to sneak in and check another country off the list. We quickly realized that there wasn't any security and the only border patrol was this cow, so we walked right on in and Kim did her first handstand in Nicaragua. We are currently in Nicaragua and we are validating every single American stereotype that was ever conceived. Poverty tourism. We're like running around here with like our fancy cameras and selfie sticks. Is Nicaragua everything you were expecting and more? This is like my dreams man. Feliz Navidad. It is Christmas day, Christmas morning, and last night we seriously camped, car camped right up this little restaurant right here. He slept like right there and then Kim and I just reclined our seats and slept there. Oh wait, that's happy birthday. Feliz Navidad. We're here in the little restaurant we just ate at. We got our Christmas tree right here. We got all these people judging us for having this giant selfie stick and it's a great Christmas. Here's a Christmas present for you all wrapped up in a leaf. Oh thank you. Oh my gosh, you got extra gummy stuff. This is amazing. Where'd you get? So last night like after you're like oh my gosh I shouldn't have any gummies, I like when I was checking out I was like oh I gotta get one more thing and I went and just grabbed them. I was like I'm gonna give this to her for Christmas. We spent Christmas day hiking to Rio Celeste, one of the largest attractions in Costa Rica. Countless people had described this waterfall as otherworldly. There it is folks, Rio Celeste, the grandest waterfall in Costa Rica. So there you have it, a de-rule Costa Rican Christmas. I can't say enough good things about this country and everyone needs to see it in their lifetime. From the landscape to the people, everything about this place is beautiful and I wish you all an exotic Christmas and an adventure-packed new year. Merry Christmas everybody.