One Week in Costa Rica - Itinerary and Travel Tips

I recently got back from a week-long trip to Costa Rica. I wanted to share my itinerary, show you some of the places we visited, and give you some tips to hopefully help you plan your next trip to this amazing country. On my last trip several years ago, I visited the east side in the Caribbean, Tortuguero, and then I spent some time on the Nicoya Peninsula on the west side. This was during September, which is considered to be the wet season. My most recent trip was during the dry season and the weather was completely different. We visited in March of 2024 and spent more time in Manuel Antonio on the southwest coast and Monte Verde Rainforest, a much higher elevation location northwest of the capital, San Jose. And while the temperature doesn't change a whole lot in Costa Rica, except for elevational differences, you'll have a lot more rain, but fewer crowds and cheaper prices during the rainy season, August to November, and it's going to be much drier with more people, higher prices during the dry season, which is about December to April. This was a short trip for me, primarily going to visit family who was staying in Manuel Antonio. Our itinerary was to fly into San Jose, take a bus to Capos, spend about four days on the coast near Manuel Antonio, then rent a car, drive to Monte Verde, the cloud forest, for another three days before heading back to the airport in San Jose. As far as transportation goes, if you're not moving around a lot, I think buses are the way to go. They're inexpensive, they cover almost the entire country, however, they tend to be very slow. If you have a larger group, you're visiting a lot of sites, or you want more freedom, rental cars can be very useful. However, there are a few things that you need to be aware of, which I'll talk about in a little bit. Taxis are easy to get in touristy areas, but they tend to be more expensive. Ride sharing is easy and common. However, Uber is technically illegal and isn't allowed at the airport. For the first leg of our trip, we got in late, decided to spend the night in an inexpensive motel near the bus station in San Jose. There's a few things worth visiting in the capital, like the Gold Museum and the National Theater. However, most people don't spend a lot of time here, and instead opt to just head straight for the beaches or mountains. Like I said earlier, Uber is technically illegal in Costa Rica. There was a sting operation going on with a lot of police presence at the airport when we arrived, so they wouldn't pick us up. If you can communicate with the driver, there's a public bus stop just down the hill north of the parking lot outside of the airport. It's about a five-minute walk, but the Uber driver is much more likely to pick you up here. If that's not an option, you can always use a taxi, but they're going to be more expensive. Once you're in San Jose, if you're taking the bus to Manuel Antonio, the Tacopa bus station has direct routes through Jaco that cost about $8 per person. This route takes about four hours. It has one stop for bathroom and snacks. It's going to drop you off at the bus station in Capos, where there's an easy transfer to Manuel Antonio. I'll put a pinned location to the bus stop in the description below so you can find it. Keep in mind, they do offer several route options to get to Capos. The direct route that we took, four hours through Jaco. They do offer another route, a little bit longer, more mountainy through Periscal. You'll just have to decide if it's worth your time waiting in the bus station for the next bus or just sitting on the bus a little bit longer. Just ask the person at the ticket counter when the next departure is and how long the ride is. Once you arrive in Capos, there's a fast and easy bus that rides back and forth between Capos and Manuel Antonio Park. It's very inexpensive, runs about every 20 to 30 minutes. Easy, fast way to get between the cities or to the national park. When we went, it was about $380 colones. They'll have a little sticker right in the front of the bus with the price. You'll need this in cash though, so make sure to bring lots of small bills and coins if you can. After arriving, we spent about three days in Manuel Antonio in a small apartment that my family was renting just outside of town. There's a lot to do in this area. Visiting the national park is a must do. If you go in the high season, make sure to book your tickets in advance because it's busy and you may not be able to get them on the day you're going. And keep in mind, the park does allow you to bring food and water, but you can't bring it in a single-use plastic bag or bottle. Drinking water is available at several drinking fountains throughout the park and there's a small restaurant, but it's expensive. The food isn't great, but they do have some good fruit smoothies. Once you arrive in the park, you can decide if you want to hire a tour guide or not. They're optional, but they can be helpful if you're trying to spot wildlife. I did find, however, that it was fairly easy to just look at where other guides are looking to find the good animals. Monkeys are fairly easy to spot, but animals like sloths and frogs are much more difficult to find if you don't know what you're looking for. If you like wildlife, a portable travel binoculars is really helpful. These are the Zeiss Terra HD that I originally bought for a trip to the Galapagos. They're very high quality for the size, highly recommended if you want great binoculars that aren't going to take up a lot of space. As far as locations in the park go, the two beaches, Espadilla in the west and the Manuel Antonio beach on the south side of that narrow peninsula are the most popular spots. However, if you do have time to explore the rest of the park, it's very pretty, full of animals, birds, monkeys, and sloths. We hiked the trail to Playa de Jimenez. There are way fewer people there and it's extremely beautiful. The main Manuel Antonio beach is also very picturesque. However, it gets really hot in the afternoon. Also, keep an eye out for monkeys. There were a ton of white-faced capuchin monkeys when we were there. They're very easy to spot. During the dry season, they'll probably be in the drinking fountains. They're more used to people here, but they aren't friendly. Definitely don't interact with them and guard your backpack because you can't trust monkeys. Other than exploring the park, eating, and lounging in the pool, we did several excursions in the Capos area while we were there. One of those was a mangrove kayak. We also did a night boat tour and an ATV ride that included a jungle hike and a swim. The mangrove kayak tour was really fun. It's a great way to explore the area that you can't get to on your own. It's very pretty. You'll probably see animals that you didn't see in the park. It ended up being a little bit challenging because of the tight mangrove channels you have to navigate. So I'd only recommend this if you're fairly confident in your kayaking abilities as someone on my tour almost flipped. The ATV tour was also enjoyable. It's not a very technical ride through a teak plantation and some river channels. The scenery is pretty, but by far, the best part of this tour was the river hike and the swim in a natural pool. But by far, the night boat tour was my favorite excursion that we did when we were down there. It's in the same place as the day kayak tour on Damas Island. You get a completely different view of the area. Riding a boat through mangrove swamps at night, you see completely different species of animals that you won't see during the day. For example, we saw several species of anteater, snakes, crocodiles, lizards, birds. It was really amazing. When we left Manuel Antonio for the cloud forest in Monteverde, there were four of us, so we decided to rent a car. Sometimes people get surprised with a higher bill than what they were quoted. There's a few things that you need to know before renting a car in Costa Rica. Cars tend to be expensive in Costa Rica. We paid about $100 a day for a basic two-wheel drive, which seems to be about the going rate. Some companies will quote you much lower prices than that. However, they're not including some of the extra charges. In addition to the car rental fee, there's two types of insurance that are required in Costa Rica. Liability, often called SLI, and collision damage. The SLI is required by law and can't be replaced by credit card coverage. However, if your credit card covers it, you can get a waiver, often called a collision damage waiver, to cover this. Just make sure to get a letter from your credit card, print it, and bring it to the rental office. I would also advise going with a good, reputable company. We went with Adobe out of Capos and had no problems with them. If it's an international company, make sure you're using their Costa Rican website, so the quote will include all the insurances and costs, and be aware of unrealistically low quotes. Monteverde is a must-visit site for me. I've been there twice and will probably visit every time I'm in the country. It's beautiful, cloudy, the weather is cool, rainy, the animals are amazing, and if you're interested in wildlife, there are many awesome parks to visit. My favorite is the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. To me, this is one location where it's worth it to have a guide. It's such a unique habitat. It's useful to have somebody who knows the area and can help you spot wildlife. We used Nasua Tours. It's a small company run by Oscar Castillo. He's an amazing guide and extremely knowledgeable about the park, ecology, and wildlife. We were on the search for the resplendent Quetzal. He helped us find one, which was an awesome bucket list bird for me. The other park we visited on this trip was Curricancha, which was in the process of building a new visitor center. It's a very pretty way of well-maintained trails. It's a different vibe than the Monteverde Cloud Forest, but well worth a visit if you have time. As far as food goes in Costa Rica, I didn't talk about the restaurants we ate in because there are so many great options. In general, I found you can get a wide variety of options and prices, and the closer to the tourist centers you are, the more expensive it's going to be. I found it's common for a basic entree in a tourist restaurant to cost $15 to $20 per person on the low end, and it can go up much higher than that. If you're looking for more authentic and much cheaper food, then look for a restaurant called A Soda. The food pretty much everywhere I tried was extremely fresh, locally produced, and not much processed food. There's so many great fruit options in Costa Rica that I think you'd be remiss to not try as many as you possibly can. After Monteverde, we headed back to San Jose in our rental car, so that was it for our trip. A few other places that I've been in Costa Rica that I highly recommend. The Parque Nacional Tortuguero on the Caribbean side. It's a little bit harder to get to, but if you're visiting in the fall, watching the green sea turtles nesting on the beach is an amazing experience. I've also spent some time on the Nicoya Peninsula on the west side. It's a much more laid back vibe than Manuel Antonio. Montezuma is a cute little beach town. Reserva Natural Cabo Blanco is beautiful, and another great place to see wildlife and thousands and thousands of permit crabs. That's all I had for this quick itinerary overview review for my trip from Costa Rica. If you like this video and you want to see more, if you have any questions about your visit, please let me know in the comments below. And again, thanks for watching.