I am trying to plan a trip to Costa Rica and need some suggestions. We want to go up to Arenal for two days then will be going over to Monteverde for a day and a half. Wondering were you would reccomend to stay and were to stay and things to do in the short amount of time we have there. Any information would be greatly appricated. Thanks

We love the Lost Iguana in Arenal and have stayed there twice. In Monteverde, we stayed at Fonda Vela and liked it; their junior suites are nice and pretty affordable. Our favorite activities in Arenal are the Cano Negro tour with Sunset Tours and dinner and hot springs at Eco Termales. In Monteverde, we liked the Original Canopy Tour and the night hike at Hidden Valley.

We are booked in at Rustic Lodge Monteverde, which is actualy in Santa Elena, about a five minute walk fro town. Heard very good things about them from tripadvisor.com ratings. Great rate - $75 / night including breakfast.

VG has given some good advice (as usual!) but you don't mention what price range you're aiming for. There are several hotel choices in each area to fit a wide variety of budgets.

Also, your time in each area is quite short. Arenal has lots of activities to offer, and it sounds like there's quite a bit in Monteverde as well (I have not actually been to MV yet...). I think you'll have to be very selective in what you choose to do, and there will be several activities that you won't have time for.

You may even want to consider just visiting one of the locations for your 3.5 days so that you can truly enjoy it rather than trying to visit 2 places in such a brief period of time. I know it's hard to scale back on seeing multiple destinations. I always have a hard time picking and choosing as well! Arenal is easily worthy of 3 to 4 days in it's own right. Just a thought...

cam makes a good point. If it were me, I'd be inclined to stay in Arenal the entire time. If you have your heart set on going to MV though, we did the Jeep Boat Jeep through Desafio, and it save us about an hour on those bad roads to MV. You take a boat across Lake Arenal and it saves you some time.