San Jose Forum: first time in costa rica

If you are arriving in Juan Santamaria International Airport in San Jose...Guanacaste...Tamarindo is about 5 hours drive...nice road...and nice beach but for a few days is way to much driving...if you like driving go for it...

Get the car...you really do not need a 4x4...any way...drive to Arenal Volcano...maybe couple nights there...many great hotels...and then drive to Manuel Antonio National Park...about 4 hours drive...nice hotels and nice small park to admire wild life...back to San Jose about 3 hours drive.

Just buckle up and enjoy the ride in PARADISE!

Hi,

For five days you can do a lot closer to San Jose. You can stay one night in San Jose and do a beautiful day trip to Poas Volcano and since the Peace Lodge gardens and butterfly garden are open, it's a must see! Plus, if I'm not wrong, the waterfalls are under repair and they have a few going already. The main not yet, but it's just gorgeous there.

I do this day tour with all my friends and family taht come to visit:)

From here you can head over to the beaches.

Manuel Antonio, tons to do and discover.

If you want to stay a bit closer - Punta Leona is a gorgeous resort type place with private beaches. but they are very close to Jaco with a bunch of activities and great restaurants!

Hope this helps,

Marina K. Villatoro

http://travelexperta.com

I have to second the recommendations just made by my friend Luis and Marina. surfspongerTamarindo might mean well, but I think an obvious is local bias is coming through. Like Luis and Marina said, with just 5 nights available to see a variety of CR, Tamarindo is just too far up in the NW corner of the country to allow you enough time to get in that variety. Stick with just the "classics" of Arenal Volcano (for your forests/volcanos) and Manuel Antonio (for your beaches. Luis is right that you don't really NEED a 4x4 for those places, although you might find driving an SUV on the twisty, turny and often bumpy mountain roads more fun. Marina also made a great suggestion to further reduce the amount of driving you have to do by either extending your stay in the Central Valley area (where you'd be coming in through anyway) with a visit to Poas and La Paz OR going to Punta Leona instead of MA (if you enjoy the resort style experience which personally is not my own cup of tea). One small point on Marina's post: they're repairing the PATHS TO the waterfalls, rather than the waterfalls themselves (I'm not sure how you'd repair a waterfall), but I'm sure thats what she meant.

Hi Hotsteve21!

If you are to stay in CR only 5 nights, you may wanna check the South Caribbean Coast. There you can find very nice beaches (Playa Chiquita, Punta Uva, Manzanillo, Punta Cocles) and very ancient forests.

You can get a guided jungle tour (daytime or at night) in Reserva Natural La Ceiba. The trees you will observe there are amazing.

We did it last week and felt very happy after de trek. we repeat at night ot see amphibians and the sounds of the jungle at night (different than during the day).

All the package were arranged by the couple managing La Kukula Lodge, a brand new ecolodge in Playa Chiquita.

Good Luck!

pep,

Practically every single one of your 14 posts have been promoting the southern caribbean coast in general and La Kukula Lodge in particular. I'm just curious whether you have a financial interest in the place or went to any other part of CR during your 5 night trip.

In my experience, Tamarindo is crowded and very overpriced. As another person said, there are nice beaches much closer to San Jose. We just returned from a mini-vacation to Playa Carrillo which is a picture-postcard little place and easy to get to with good roads.

You will pretty much have to choose the east side of Costa Rica or the west side or something in between so you don't spend all your time traveling. You could do Arenal - forest, lake, zip lines, etc and then go to one of the Pacific beaches pretty easily.

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