Hello,

I am planning a 8 day trip to Costa Rica. We will stay 4 days in Arenal and 4 days in Monteverde. I am looking for things to do and great places to eat? Any ideas would be great! I am staying in Hotel Arenal Nayara and then Hidden Canopy Treehouse.

Thank you guys!

Nayara is a great place to stay. Their restaurant is excellent; other places we like are Don Rufino, La Choza de Laurel, and for something cheap Soda la Parada. Some of the activities we've done are hike at the waterfall, hike the Hanging Bridges and the volcano, enjoy Tabacon or Eco Termales hot springs, raft with Rios Tropicales, a sunset boat tour of the lake, and visiting Proyecto Asis animal center and Luna Nueva organic farm. Also really loved ziplining at Sky Trek and doing the Cano Negro tour to see wildlife; the Penas Blancas river float is fun too.

In Monteverde, we enjoyed a guided hike in the reserve to see quetzals, ziplining at the Original Canopy Tour, and doing the night hike at Hidden Valley. Selvatura is very popular too. Pizzeria de Johnny is a good place to eat.

Oh boy lots of ideas! Thank you so much for your time.

I was just looking into Tabaacon hot springs... Would you recommend a half day, half day and lunch, or full day?

Lastly would you recommend booking activities now online or wait till I get there? We are going in May.

Thank you again!

Glad to help! I think you'd be fine to wait until you get there for booking things. If you're interested in Eco Termales, they do sell out since they limit the number of people who enter, so I would book that one ahead. We like to go to the hot springs in the evenings after it's cooled off; that way we can do adventure activities during the day. Other than the springs, there's not a lot of things to do at night. A few hours at the hot springs is plenty for us, but up to you.

Lots of good restaurants in the MV/Santa Elena area- as VG said Pizza de Johnny is good and is a really nice place- we destroyed a large "anything else" pizza after a long day hiking in the park.We also enjoyed Chimera, a tapas restaurant between MV and SE- the seabass was fantastic and the chicken with chocolate sauce was, well, kinda like it sounds-not my favorite!There are a couple of Costa Rican owned places in downtown Santa Elena that are worth a try- El Marquez for seafood and El Campesino for more typical costa rican fare. We also tried two bakeries in the area, Stella's which was a little disappointing and Panderia Jimenez(downtown SE)which we loved.Good locally made ice cream can be had at the cheese factory and at a little place downtown near the bus station.

HI Artiejay!

Thank you very much. I am working on making a list of places to go and places not to go so I can plan accordingly. I look forward to trying out a few of these places. Thank you again.