Costa Rica: budget vacations
 

My girlfriend & I 've just decided to visit Costa Rica in mid-june, for a couple of weeks. The first thing that we wanna do plainning our trip is looking for a good guide.
I have the guess that Fodor's is focused on higher class tourist rather than travellers as us.
For instance, I've checked prices of B&B, and all of them are quite expensive (for latin amrica standard), $40 o higher! This is not possible. I ask myself if there are no pensions or posadas in Costa Rica? Weird...

Do someone think this guide could be useful for us? Cheers to everyone.

Take heart! There are some pensions and hostels in San Jose. But I would assume you want to get out of the city and explore the country!

In most beach locations, there are basic cabinas for less than $30 per night. Most travel books lists all of these options. Find yourself the most recent book on Costa Rica that you can find (Lonely Planet or Moon is good) and start looking.

This is true for both the Pacific and Caribbean sides. One of our favorite places is Hotel Brasilito. Right on the beach. Kind of a dirty little town and beach, but very funky. The rooms are about $30 per night. You won't find beachfront hotels for that price very often. If you go across the street, you will probably cut your prices by a third or maybe more. You will just have to research this a little more. Hopefully, others will have some suggestions for you as well.

Some areas are going to be more expensive such as the very popular Manuel Antonio park area near Quepos. But around Montezuma, Tamarindo, Coco Beach up north, you can find cheap accomodations. The typical Costa Rican meals served in the sodas (small open restaurants) tend to be very inexpensive as well. Good luck and have fun!

There are definitely places in Costa Rica where you can stay for less than that. Definitely get the Lonely Planet guide for CR - it has a whole range of places from least to most expensive. You will also find a lot of information on the Lonely Planet discussion forum which caters more to lower budget travelling. The recommendations in this forum tend to be in the moderate to high end range.

There are quite a few hostels and pensions in Costa Rica. I have stayed in a few. In Monteverde there are at least 2. Pension Santa Elena and Pension Manakin.
Pension Santa Elena is the more popular of the 2 and is also the home of monteverdeinfo.com. June is a good time for budget travelers as you can do a bit more bargaining for lower prices if you just show up. Most of those places will have other travelers in your same price range to compare notes with. Lonely Planet is the bible to a lot of backpackers although many of the other guide books also list a full range of options.

I appreciate your help guys. I take your tips about places. I am gonna snift for the places you say out. Cheers.