Hi all,

Would like your expertise and input on the following itinerary for this March:

3 days @ Tulemar in Manuel Antonio
-can we drive easily from San Jose?

3 days Montverde
-what's this drive like? and how long?

4 days Tamarindo
- looking for beach hotels with good access to street restaurants

Drive to Liberia Airport
-how long?

We've read quite a bit about shuttles and private tours vs rental cars. Given our itinerary,
is rental car a better way to go? We typically do that, but are wondering about the roads.

Thanks for all your input and suggestions.

Driven to all those places in various orders; yes, the new highway makes it a pretty easy drive from San Jose to Tulemar (wonderful little semi-private beach there).
The drive back to Monteverde will take about 4 hours. It's a rough road on the very last part; you will want a 4-wheel drive (small one is fine; that's the only road on your itinerary that you might find rough).
Monteverde to Tamarindo allow 5 hours.
Tamarindo to the airport, less than 2 hours.
We're seniors, and have never had problems with car rentals in Costa Rica. It is a much more enjoyable experience, IMO, to drive yourself (and the photo ops make it worth being on your own schedule).
Here's a chart with basic travel times:
http://www.yourtravelmap.com/costari...hp?&width=1280
1.If your cc covers collision, get the bids from the rental places to quote you liability only. (Don't pay the maximum per day (full insurance) if you don't have to. Many horror stories of costs of rental cars are because people didn't do their research.)
2.We rented with Europcar in San Jose; they brought the car to the hotel for no extra charge (you don't want to leave the airport and start driving at night). In Liberia, we used Solid, and had no problems at all. A small 4WD was adequate for us (and we were on a lot of back roads down in Quepos and south).
3. Bring all your paperwork (a print out of coverage from your cc company is great if you can have someone email you an "official" letter.
4. CONFIRM your rates and print it out.
Sounds like you are doing a one-way rental; have you thought about just doing your trip in a big circle from/back to Liberia?

Thanks for your reply, Sylvia3. We are going one-way. It's not a problem for us, we've done it all over as it fits what we prefer to do rather than a loop. We've read so much about rent vs not rent a car, our eyes are crossed, although we prefer to drive ourselves.

Thanks again!

If you usually prefer to rent your own car, I highly recommend that you do it in Costa Rica. You will be glad you did.

We did a trip to Tulemar earlier this year - loved it and agree it's pretty easy to drive yourself. We had their driver pick us up and take us back to the airport, but we rented a car for a day to do a croc tour on the Rio Tarcoles and had no problems whatsoever. Roads were in good shape. One thing I liked about having the driver is that he pointed out things that we would have missed - a tree full of scarlet macaws for example, but it was pricey to have a driver. Personally I would not want to drive to Monteverde. The road is long and bumpy and not in great shape and has some steep dropoffs. Totally doable if you want to, but kind of a pain, and we wanted to sit back and just enjoy the beautiful views. We used the Jeep Boat Jeep because we were going between Arenal and Monteverde - only about $30 each so a pretty good deal. Sounds like you have a great trip planned.

Thanks, Volcanogirl, we were wondering about the road between Arenal and Monteverde. It's always nice to have the benefit of someone who has "been there, done that."