1) Can anyone recommend a good hostel in manuel antonio or a budget hotel?

2) Are manuel antonio and quepos two towns that are very close together? Are they both the same in terms of their activities or access to travel sites?
thanks.
ewaj

Manuel Antonio is actually the name of the national park there - the one that you can hike through and see all the monkeys and go to the beach. Most of the hotels are clustered on a hill here, and everyone refers to this area as Manuel Antonio. The actual city is Quepos - there's a road that leads in between them. Most people stay and do their activities in Manuel Antonio.

Didi's B & B gets great reviews. There are some more budget places mentioned on Trip Advisor, I can't remember their names though. Good luck!

Hi, ewaj - if you don't get a lot of responses, you can go over to tripadvisor.com and do a search yourself. Just do a search for the city, and it will list all the hotels along with prices and reviews. I find it to be pretty reliable.

La Colina is a nice budget hotel. Hubby and I stayed there about three years ago on our first visit to CR. The cost of the room included breakfast and I think it was only about $60/night during the high season. It's not anything special but it was clean and had good food. The only negative was the noise of the trucks on the hill at night.

I stayed at Didi's in February and it was great for price we paid. I would say it's between Quepo's and Manuel Antonio. We never had a problem getting a ride to or from the park or anywhere else we wanted to go. A good breakfast is included.

I just returned from Costa Rica (trip report coming) and Manuel Antonio was our last stop. We stayed at Didis for three nights. Ezio, the owner, is so very kind. The breakfast of fresh fruit, toast, and pastries every morning is wonderful. However, the B&B does feel a little worn. In addition, the pool is very, very small. We definitely enjoyed our stay there, and the price is right, but just be aware that when you book a budget hotel there might be little things here and there that aren't 100% to your liking.

I would also suggest that you stay at a hotel in Manuel Antonio (meaning along the road leading to the park) over Quepos. Aside from the Best Western, I didn't see any place there that I would have stayed.

The cost of taxis to and from the park will depend on where your hotel is situated. For us they ran $5 a trip.

Hope this info helps. Have fun and enjoy Costa Rica!