Ok its official, plane tickets have been bought! Im so excited, At this point we are planning on arriving to SJ at noon getting the rental 4x4 and immediately heading noth to Arenal. We plan to leave the following morning and head to Hermosa and then work our way south along the coast as the days progress.

I was wondering If anyone knew approx. travel times and the best routes I should take. Also I had heard it was possible to drive on the beach to get from one place to another. Is this true? If so it sounds like great fun.

My wife and I are very spontanious people and do not like a strict Itenerary, but we really appreciate any and all suggestions. This helps us plan better when we are there. Thanks so much for your input. Sean

Dear whirdwid,
I am not sure what you mean by driving on the beach. You can drive on the roads near the beach, but not on the beach. The roads all the way down to Samara are more or less paved (I think), but further south, they may not all be reachable (depending on when you come), and many are not paved. Actually the roads in the peninsula are being renovated and improved all the time, so I may not be totally up to date, but I can guarantee you that some roads will not be paved. Since you will be stopping on the way in different beaches, I am not sure how useful it is to know the driving time between places. Basically once you start going down from Hermosa you will pass many beach towns, some more secluded than others, and all 30-90 minutes apart. These are not long stretches of beaches of nothing, there are small villages and beautiful beaches all along the coast, all the way down to the tip of the peninsula.
If you are spontaneous and you are coming during the rainy season, you will do just fine without any reservations. On your way back to SJ, you will probably take the ferry to Puntarenas.

One last thing - I think the Arenal area is well worth 2 nights. By the time you get to Arenal the day you land, and because you will be leaving early the following morning, you will have very little time to enjoy the area. Also, if you stay 2 nights, you double your chances to see the volcano.

I hope it helps. Please feel free to write me directly for any more information or with any more questions.
Pura Vida,
Neta Talmor

First a word of caution: Our flight was scheduled to arrive inSan Jose at 12:20 p.m. on a Saturday and we had reservations in La Fortuna for that same night. Due to a slight delay in landing, and a much longer delay getting through customs, we didn't get our rental car until after 4:30p.m. That gave us only an hour of daylight. The drive to Arenal is about three hours, and although we survived, I wouldn't recommend driving there in the dark. The best route from the airport to Arenal is through San Ramon and La Tigra.
One could drive from Playa Hermosa south along the shoreline, but I wouldn't recommend it. The portion from Playa Ocotal to Potrero is very difficult and not well signed. It's quicker and easier to head inland to Filadelfia and then back west to the beaches.

Sean,
Check this out on a map--these are the main beach areas:

Hermosa area

Flamingo-Tamarindo area (about an hour south)

Samara-Nosara area (another hour south)

From there on down you cannot drive during the May-November rainy season, although I hear it is an interesting adventure (river crossings) during the drier months!

Puntarenas (as a launching point via ferry to check out the beaches of the southern Nicoya Peninsula)--a couple of hours from Samara area

Manuel Antonio area--another couple of hours south of Puntarenas

These are the most visited areas. You can continue south of Manuel Antonio to other beaches on rougher roads!

When moving from one "cluster" of beaches to the next, you almost always have to drive inland. The tropical forests meet the ocean in most places, so most of the beaches are small and isolated, except for those which are, as I mentioned, sort of clustered together.

Rbrazil thanks for the caution. Does it really get dark there at 6pm? Shillmac is it really impossible to get south of samara because of the roads, I had hoped to go all the way to the tip and then head up to Puntarenas and take the ferry. But If samara is as far south as i can go it looks like it might make better sense to just drive back around than take the chance of having to wait for hours in queue at the ferry. Thanks again for all of the input and could somebody reccomend any secret beaches or great waterfalls that I might come across. Peace,
Sean

Last year we drove the identical route that you are planning. Our plane was late, too, and driving up to Arenal from San Jose in the dark was not that much fun.

The drive from Arenal to Hermosa(around Lake Arenal and via Canas, then up the PanAmerican Highway through Liberia to the coast) should take about 4 hours. Be sure to stop at the bakery in Nuevo Arenal for some goodies.

Road conditions were spotty in some areas, but were not nearly as bad as they were made out to be.

I'd also suggest two days in Arenal; there's enough to do, and it'll give you a better shot of actually seeing the volcano.

Whirldwind, it does get dark in Costa Rica at 6pm every day. Because it is so close to the equator, daylight is from 6 am to 6pm with no variation throughout the year. And it gets really dark really quickly - as soon as the sun sets, it is total darkness. Never drive after dark unless you know the road exactly.

If you don't have reservations at Arenal that first day and your plane is late, just get your car and find a place to stay somwhere in the Central Valley - there are plenty of nice hotels available. It is about 3 hours from the airport to Arenal and the route through San Ramon and La Tigra is the fastest. It is in decent shape but very winding and poorly marked. The drive from Arenal to Hermosa should take you about 4 hours (driving time, not including rest stops). You will need to drive around the lake (the road is very pot holed and is not paved for about 1/2 hour) to Tilaran then on to Canas where you turn right onto Panamerican Hwy and go to Liberia. In Liberia turn left for the coastal towns and follow the signs from there. Roads are good from Tilaran to most of the coastal towns. If you are interested, in Liberia turn right and go into town to explore. It is a really neat totally non-touristy town. It is also a good place to get cash from an ATM (there are banks along the road leading to the center of the town) - the coastal towns have limited ATM service.

As to driving on the beach: there are really no long stretches of the beach where you can do that. Shillmac's description is very accurate. We drove along your proposed route in reverse: from the Paquera ferry to Malpais then on to Nosara and then to Tamarindo (last August) and the coastal roads were not passable. We had to go inland (and some of those inland roads are an adventure too!). The only place where we actually drove on the beach was to get to Playa Conchal from Playa Brasilito - you can drive along the beach for a few hundred yards at low tide.

Sean,
You didn't mention (I don't think) what month you were planning to go. I am not absolultely positive about traveling south from Samara, but we have always been told that it is not advisable during the rainy season. Even with a 4X4. You shouldn't have to wait for hours in line for the ferry. We have always gotten there an hour ahead of time just to be on the safe side and never had a problem getting on. Usually one of the first in line. There is a National Geographic travel book on Costa Rica that details the journey south from Samara. It is not marked and involves several river crossings, timing it just right for the tide, turning inland at several points, not well marked, etc. You might look at this description. It mentions the difficulty of fording rivers that are swollen during the rainy season and deceptive forks that cause confusion. No gas stations, many hours (probably 5 or 6 in the dry season) to travel 57km (around 34 miles). I do think it would be a wonderful adventure in the dry season! We put a huge dent in a rental vehicle once just crossing a tiny river (hit a submerged log).

To second what Shillmac is saying, we wanted to drive from Malpais to Nosara along the coast last August and were very strongly advised against it by local people. Basically, in the rainy season you need a 4x4 with a snorkel to get through the rivers.

Check out this website for a description of those roads:

www.nicoyapeninsula.com

see the section entitled Car Driving and Manzanillo, how to get to Guanacaste.

Awesome thanks for the great advice, I pray our flight is on time but the advice we recieved will help plan this better If it is late. Im bummed we cant go further south than samara, but that can happen on another trip. We will arrive there in 2 weeks. Besides the beaches already noted, does anyone have any other suggestions of great beaches? We love secluded areas but also enjoy bigger areas like tamarindo! Thanks again for your help and Elvisisdead thanks for the bakery suggestion! Ill definantly stop there. Keep the good advie coming!!!!!!!!!1

You can definitely go further south than Samara, it is just that you probably will not be able to go along the coast. But ask locally, too, when you get there. Since you will be there at the tail end of the dry season, the roads may be passable.

Two beaches we "discovered" last year that we really liked were Playa Negra and Playa Avellana south of Tamarindo - just beautiful, no crowds and great surfing (from what I have seen; I am not a surfer myself).

Two things: First I want to be sure you are talking about the Playa Hermosa in Guanacaste (there are at least two of them on the Pacific side.) Sometimes people talk about going to "Hermosa" and they are referring to the one south of Quepos. Second, if you are talking about the one in Guanacaste, I recommend that you have dinner at Ginger, which is a really nice new restaurant in Playa Hermosa.

Iza thanks for those beach suggestions! We will definantly go there. A quick search on google turned up a neat lil hotel playa negra. I think we might just stay there. Thanks again.
Rbrazil yes I was reffering to Hermosa in Guanacaste! Thanks for the restaurant tip of Gingers. Has anyone found a good place to snorkel? Or kayak....Thanks Again Sean

Rbrazil, Is it common for it to take that long to get through customs? Hopefully, that was a rarity. We are arriving in San Jose at 12:40PM on Aug 10 (a Tuesday), plan on renting a Dollar rental car, and driving to MA that same day. We have reservations at La Colina. It takes 3 - 31/2 hours to drive from SJ to MA so I'm hoping we can be on the road by 2:30 or 3:00pm.
I have all our hotel reservations made so I would hate to change them. My husband wants to stick with our current itinerary. What airline did you fly on? We are flying American from Boston, get off the plane in Miami, and then get back on the same plane (hopefully, less of a chance of anything going wrong). I think we will take our chances and pray everything goes smoothly. I suppose, if worse comes to worse, we can get a hotel at the last minute in Alajuela, & call La Colina to tell them we are arriving a day late.

Kwoo,

Remember that 12:40 is about the time you arrive, not the time you will actually enter the airport. 15 or 20 minutes here and there add up!

12:40 arrival
1:00 baggage carousel (if you just have carry ons, you can save time, of course)
1:20 line for immigration
1:40 of 1:45 arrive Dollar near airport exit
2:00 (give or take) driver will come and take you a short distance to office
2:10-2:45 paperwork, check car over, etc.

You see, everything takes a little longer than planned. And I think the above outline is about the BEST you can hope for, not the worst. Every time we have arrived, it has been almost exactly 2 hours before we drive off the rental car property and are on our way. Good Luck!

You SHOULD be on the road by 2:45 or 3:00. Safe travels! And have a great time!

Oops, sorry. My name is not RBrazil. . . .got carried away helping to plan your trip!

Shillmac,
Thanks for your helpful outline of what our arrival will hopefuly look like!!!And thanks for getting carried away!

Thanks. You are kind to this "butt in"! But, to keep butting further, if you can be on your way by 3:00, you can probably arrive MA without having to drive too long after dark. You should be at your hotel by 7:00 at the latest. I think 3 hours is a little optimistic, but hopefully it won't take 4! The good thing is that you will have already driven over the stretch between Atenas and Orotina before it gets dark. This high mountainous road might be a little treacherous after dark. From Orotina, it is coastal.

Kwoo, to answer your question, I don't think it's common to wait that long, it's just possible. The trip before that one we literally walked right past customs (admittedly pre-9/11), but even the week after we arrived this time, other people said they had no problems. For us it was three hours of hellish waiting on line (or in line if you're not from New York.) We flew Delta. I think it was because it was a Saturday and several planes landed around the same time. You shouldn't have a problem with your plans. Have a great trip.

I would like to suggest that when you come to CR, you remember that the country's motto is Pura Vida. Very often, this means that your well-planned itinerary doesn't quite work out.

i.e. the best way to visit Costa Rica is to relax, and make an adventure out of everything - somewhere along the way, something will be delayed, or your reservation mixed up, or you run out of gas, or you missed the turn-off to your destination because there wasn't a sign.

Where ever you end up, you are in a safe and friendly place, with plenty of places to visit and things to see. Relax and enjoy all of it, even the not-so-planned adventures...sometimes those turn out to be the best memories.