Enough time to drive to Osa?
 

I have a last minute opportunity to fit Bosque del Cabo in my vacation. I would need to drive from Monteverde on June 22 as far as Tikki-Villas in the Uvita area. According to YourMaps site that will take 5 hours. I would stay one night and get up and drive to Puerto Jimenez in time to be picked up by the resort or get some other transpo to the resort. I would have 3 days there. I could either drive 8 hours back to SJO area or fly. Please comment.

BdC is wonderful. I would go for it as long as you're comfortable driving.

I've done the drive from Dominical to Monteverde a couple of times and it's not bad and Tiki Villas is only another 15 - 20 minutes. With the new bridges and pavement getting to Puerto Jimenez from Uvita is a breeze. Why not just continue on down to BDC? I suppose if you're driving a car instead of a 4WD it could be sketchy by the end of June.

If you can drop your car off in PJ without too big a one way charge then you'd save enough on not paying for 3 more days rental while it sits in PJ to pay for the flight...

Ray, costa-rica-guide.com

I would go for it as long as you don't mind the drive. The drive from Uvita to PJ was 3 hours before they completed the road so is probably a little shorter now, it's a nice drive. Sounds like I will just miss you by a few days, will be at El Remanso next door then head over to Bosque on the 29th. Have a great drive and trip!

Last night my husband, the driver, began to get worried about the drive from Arenal to Monteverde. We can't do the jeep/boat thing because Solid Car Rental says no unauthorized drivers. Also we never hear much about the roads between Monteverde and Manuel Antonio. What should we expect there? Maybe we should drop our rental in Arenal and hire a driver or take a shuttle to Monteverde, then take a shuttle to Dominical/Uvita where we would have to rent a car for one day to get us to our hotel there and then down to Puerto Jimenez where we would again drop that car off. This is so complicated. We are completing all our travel by June 27th so you can see we need to get this settled.

The drive from Arenal to Monteverde is a pain in the butt, but it doesn't seem particularly dangerous or anything. It's just long and bumpy with no guard rails, kids, horses, etc. in the road. It's totally doable if you don't do it in the dark. We book drivers through our hotels, and that's an easy way to go if you don't want to drive.

Servicecarental.com

RT drive a tone better than flying

Mapcr.com coast road most scenic and safe with breaks

Kind of crammed make more time or pare back for best experience.

Would not do one way drop off charges very steep

Look into your routes here http://www.yourtravelmap.com/costarica/travelmap/ It will give you step by step driving instructions.

Just a thought - if you're using the car mainly to get from Monteverde to Puerto Jimenez (and spending 1 night in the Uvita on the way), have you looked into just dropping the car off in Arenal and then using the jeep/boat transfer to get to Monteverde, then a private driver back to San Jose (early am) to catch a noonish flight to PJ? Or just get a private driver to take you straight from Montevede to PJ all in one day (about 8 hours)? Either way would give you an extra night at Bosque, and omit some of the hassle.