Osa Peninsula, best way to get there?
 

Planning a family (kids 16 and 14) spring break trip - from Seattle. We will have 8 nights. Would like to spend the whole time in the Osa Peninsula area. Questions:

1. Drive there and fly back?
2. How is the drive, assuming I drive in daylight hours?
3. Easy to rent a car in San Jose and return to Puerto Jimenez?
4. Better to arrive at 5:30pm and stay in San Jose or redeye and arrive in the morning?

i'd suggest you fly in on sansa or nature air. that is what we did.

Personal opinions:

1. Fly there, fly back,
2. Very, very long.
3. No. Only one agency has offices in both San Jose and Puerto Jimenez. You'll get charged for dropping it off in addition to the entire time you're in the Osa (when you may not drive it once)
4. Red-eye into SJO, then you can spend the night in the Osa instead of near the airport.

Nature Air is out of business. Fly down and back on Sansa - too long to drive. Just going from Puerto Jimenez to our lodge, we encountered cattle in the road, construction, and a tree across the road - you don't want to deal with all that. It's only about an hour flight from SJO to Puerto Jimenez, much easier.

We did it a little differently. We took a redeye but hired a driver to take us to Puerto Jimenez in a van, then flew back. That way we got to see a part of CR we hadn't seen before, such as the crocodiles. But it is a long drive maybe six hours and I agree don't rent a car.

I haven't been to the Osa Peninsula (yet!) but I wanted to comment on the choice between arriving late afternoon and staying near SJO versus a red-eye and driving down. If you choose to go with the red-eye, then fly to Osa peninsula or get a driver to take you. It is a long drive and I don't think you should drive yourselves that far after a red eye flight. On our recent trip, we did a red-eye and then drove up to Arenal - it's like a 3 hour drive. it was fine, but I was very glad that this was only a 3 hour drive. We were pretty tired once we got to Arenal.