Driving in Costa Rica
 

We are planning a trip to Costa Rica at the end of September. I read that it is not advisable to drive in Costa Rica after dark.

We will be arriving at SJO at 8pm, and planning to stay in SJ town area. According to Google map, the drive is around 30 minutes on Route 1. It looks like a major route to me. I'd like to know if it is still safe to drive that stretch at night, or should I avoid it completely?

Does it get dark earlier than 5:30 - 6pm in the month of September?

Thanks in advance.

Such warnings are about driving in rural areas between towns. It's a mostly built-up, metropolitan area between the airport and the city. You'll be traveling on a six-lane highway.

It's getting dark about 5:30 these days. When you're driving elsewhere in Costa Rica, always plan to be at your destination by then.

About halfway between the airport and city is a bridge where traffic narrows from six lanes to four.

Hello codebeans
what I can recommend you is to get a hotel with transfer in service as you arrive at night, the next morning get the car rental delivering the car to your hotel, as travel advisor in CR we always recommend to void driving at night, for long distances, in CR it gets dark around 5:30pm

I'd be okay driving within the city since things are lit and marked, just not between cities like Jeff mentioned. We got the GPS option on our last trip, and it was nice to have.

I'd go along with Diego on this one. If you can, get a hotel with a free shuttle and save yourself a night's car rental. Best case scenario would be for the car rental company to bring you your vehicle the next morning and head off from there. If you want to driver yourself, then a 30 minute stretch of well-lit city highway shouldn't be an issue. The warning concerns poorly lit, pot-holed roads where cyclists, dogs and any number of animals and children can seemingly pop out of the darkness into your path! Have a great trip!

If you have a Garmin GPS, you can also load the free Cenrut GPS maps onto it:
http://www.cenrut.org/adw/over.htm

But be sure to get to your destination before dark. Driving at night can be really hairy.

Within SJ in the evening should be fine, it is when you get out of the main urban areas that the lack of lighting, road signs, road painting, etc really starts to be a problem.

Sunset is around 5:30pm at that time of the year, so there should be pretty good light until 6pm:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc...&afl=-11&day=1