Hello! Leaving for Costa Rica in one week, for 11 night honeymoon! What is the best way to handle money? Should we bring traveler's checks? I've read that they charge a higher exchange rate. Can we exchange for colones at the airport? We will try to use credit cards as much as possible and don't want to carry around a lot of cash. Is this difficult? How about using debit cards in ATMs? I know ATMs can't be found everywhere. Thanks!

Don't bother changing your money - US dollars work everywhere - ticos will give you change in colones. We only had issues with a high exchange rate and incorrect change returned on one occasion, and it was for a relatively small amount (sunscreen from a drugstore). Many places had their cash registers jigged to present a reciept in both USD and Colones side by side!

Hotels and tourist restaurants will take credit cards, sodas and more locals oriented places may not. ATMs are slightly hard to find - I saw from your other thread that you are going to Monteverde - while I wasn't looking, I'm pretty sure I never saw one while I was there.

Have a great time!

You can change some dollars for Colones at the airport for convenience; I recommend around $100 worth. ATMs are becomming more common but there are variations in service between banks, etc. In the larger towns you can usually find one to work. Almost all hotels and many of the larger restaurants take creditcards. Some bring travellers checks for emergencies but you will pay a small fee to cash them at the bank. Some hotels will take them to pay your bill and may even cash them for you. As noted above, almost everyone will take $$ and give change in Colones but unless you have a good idea of what you have coming back, I recommend paying the posted Colon price and counting your change! Congratulations, good luck and have fun!

nycsarah: Bring US money and exchange or use it anywhere. This is better than bringing Traveler's checks or Cash advancing a Credit card, if you can find an ATM. I used ATM's with Credit card and got colones with no issue, just notify Credit card company on the dates that you will be in CR and remember your pin #.

We brought US $ in small bills ( about $300.00), travellers checques as " back-up " about($300.00). And used credit card whenever possible(hotels , restaurants ) . As we needed more cash ,we took it from the atm's in US $ . We never carried around large amt.'s of cash .