Please Help! I need some travel Advice regarding Costa Rica
 

Dear Fellow travelers,
I hope that you can help me. I'm in the process of planning our vacation and my SO and I are thinking and visiting Costa Rica this year. I've been doing some research and I'm completely lost. I honestly don't know where to go in CR.
To begin with I don't know which itinerary we should have and I don't know if it's better for us to go with a tour group or just by ourselves. We want to arrive in Costa Rica in December 02, 2010 and leave in December 18th, 2010. We want to stay a couple of days at the beach, be able to visit some museums in San Jose and visit a volcano\natural park.
We don't want to spend most of our time traveling, honestly we dislike the idea of feeling like we are in some sort of "marathon' we want to have time to relax and see how life goes by.
Budget wise, we are kind of the middle, we are not looking for hostels (nothing wrong with them) but we don't want to get a second mortgage in order to pay for this vacation.
So, can any of you experts, give me some advice? Please?
Thanks

I find it very easy to do costa rica on your own. I would fly into San jose and spend a few nights there or at the end of the trip. I would suggest traveling to arenal area and seeing the volcano and other activities in that area then head to the beach the last few days.

With a good two weeks you might try an arenal (volcano), Monteverde (cloud forest), Manuel Antonio (beach) combination.

cmazza and rpowell,
thank you for your post. my question is, if we do CR on our own, can we go to the places that you mentioned by bus? if so, how safe are they?
I'm not interested in driving over there

www.interbusonline.com shuttles better than bus less hassle

www.thebusschedule.com has bus options dodgier cheaper

www.arenal.net

www.hotelvistadelcerro.com

www.manuelantoniopark.com

www.villasnicolas.com

might make a nice combo for you

www.costaverdeinn.com for your flight nights

Have fun,

Yes, you can travel to popular tourist destinations via Interbus shuttle.

https://www.interbusonline.com/home/home.asp

You can also hire a private driver to take you from one location to the next, lots of recommendations on this forum if you do a search.

If you go to Monteverde, we liked Arco Iris Ecolodge. Although it's in town (Santa Elena) the grounds are very expansive, tours will pick you up there, excellent breakfast, reasonable rates and you can walk just a few minutes into town. Guided tours can be arranged for the reserve.

If you go to Arenal, we enjoyed staying at Arenal Paraiso, again middle of the road lodgings. It is a bit further out of town, so that could be an issue for transportation, but most tours will include hotel pickup. You might enjoy the Cano Negro boat trip to the wildlife reserve, Eco-Termales for soaking in the thermal pools (Paraiso has their own), the hanging bridges, La Fortuna Waterfall. Plenty to keep you busy for 3-4 days there.

For reasonable airport hotel for first or last night, we are using Adventure Inn, free taxi, 10% discount with cash. They also have many tours leaving from the hotel to Central Valley locations.

We love the Sarapiqui region and always stay at Selva Verde. Between it, La Selva and Tirimbina there is plenty to keep you busy for 3 days or so.

We have visited some of the museums in San Jose, but much prefer the natural beauty of Costa Rica versus being in the city.

Have fun!

We found it all very confusing and expensive also. We are using a tour company to set us up an iteniary of the places we wanted to stay and the things we wanted to do. We chose the Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio areas. The package includes hotels, transporation and the activities we chose in each area. Having not been there before, we felt more comfortable doing a package then trying to do/find things on our own. Especially since we did not want to rent a car. We are not going until next year, so plenty of time to plan and save up.

If you are feeling confused by it all, a compromise between planning it all on your own and "going on a tour" could be to contact Pat Hewitt, a travel agent who specializes in Costa Rica and frequently posts here. Many of us here (myself included) have sought his help on first trips to Costa Rica. He made all our arrangements for our first (2 week?) trip - to Arenal, Monteverde, and the Osa. He works out of New Orleans, but has a second home in Monteverde. Very knowledgeable about Costa Rica and will plan a trip and make all arrangements according to your budget/desires.
http://www.lovecostarica.com/

I've also used Pat Hewitt to line things up for me on a couple of trips. He's very nice and knowledgeable (as glover says).

There are so many wonderful places to visit in Costa Rica that it can indeed by confusing when you first begin researching it, but the suggestion of Arenal, Monteverde,and Manuel Antonio is terrific for first-time visitors. You'll get a good mix of different types of terrain and eco-systems.

All 3 places offer a lot to see and do.

I tend to agree with colibri regarding San Jose. There are some decent museums there, but it's not really a 'destination city' in it's own right. If you feel compelled to visit, there are city tours you can typically arrange through your hotel. I definitely wouldn't devote much of your itinerary to it though; not with all the amazingly beautiful countryside that exists outside of San Jose...

my suggestion check http://fortunatimes.com there you will find everything about La Fortuna Arenal Area.... highly recommended

When I plan a trip I always spend time looking at tour itineraries to get an idea of where the groups go. This gives you an idea of what the most and lesser popular places are to go. You can review various companies' tour info at www.affordabletours.com. This can also give you an idea of budget so when you start pricing things out you can see what works out to be more or less than a low budget or luxury tour. You may even consider doing a tour for one part of time and then extending from there going to other places on your own.

There are a diversity of places to visit in Costa Rica and they can all be really close or really far apart. Decide what is the most or least amount of time you would spend in any given place (say maybe no less than 2 nights, but no more than 5) and then you can see how many locations you can cover and which work best with regards to transportation and availability.

I just posted our 11 day trip report. We were on a budget as well. The biggest cost was the airfare and the car rental (quoted at 645 but came out to 979 after taxes, gps, airport 12% etc) . and that was with waiving some of the insurance because our credit card covered us.
FOod is delicious and inexpensive at tipicas all over the country - we really did not have a bad meal the entire time. Have fun

We used Interbus for our travel destinations within CR. They were very reliable, prompt and comfortable. Even though they may pick up other travelers we were the only ones on ours. With only 2 of you traveling, this would be a cheaper option than hiring a driver. We were very budget minded and were happy with the following hotel options.
Arenal: Silencio del Campo
Monteverde: Sapo Dorado
Aalejuela: Orquideas
San Jose area: Hotel Bouigainvillea
Manuel antonio: rented a house for 3 days through vrbo (Awesome!!)

We also Used Pat Hewitt for part of our planning

Thank you for all your responses. I'll try Pat's company and I'll keep you informed.
Gracias, Thanks :)

I have only begun to research/plan a trip to Costa Rica and I feel very overwhelmed. I already find that these forums are a huge help, but it is mind boggling. We are going in January 2011 for about 10 days. Arenal is a must; we were also thinking of Tamarindo, to the beach. We did not plan to visit the Caribbean side, but I desperately want to see the turtles. Is it possible to fit that into our trip as well?

What you might do is fly into Liberia (LIR), stay at Tamarindo or one of the nearby beaches, head for Arenal and then take a rafting trip that will send you on your way to Tortuguero. With 10 days, this is a busy trip but it also depends on when you fly in and out - what time of day, in other words, whether you have actually 10 days in country or really 8 or 9. You might need to cut this down to just two locations - a beach and Arenal.

Check here for more informatiin: www.Tamarindocosta-rica.com
www.arenal.net and www.tortuguerovillage.com

Tamarindo is a busy and developed place with lots to do and good nightlife (and fast food places) so if you are looking for a quiet laid back beach town, this isn't it. Check here for more information on Pacific beaches - www.nicoyapeninsula.com For distances and travel times, check here: www.yourtravelmap.com

In planning, I would first think about what you like to do or see: wildlife, adventure outdoor activities, rainforest hiking, "alternative" things such as a tour of an organic farm. Then figure out if you want the "active" vacation or the "relaxing" vacation. Then look at places to go for these things. (You can just Google "zip line Costa Rica" for instance.) After that, take a look at lodging for wherever you are interested in. Lastly, be sure to think about your transportation options - how would you like to get around? Public bus? Rent a car? etc

Leenda - If you are going in January, I don't think you will see turtles at Tortuguero. The season is July - Oct. I don't know about the Pacific side and turtle nesting season.

You can see Olive Ridley turtles year round at Ostional Beach. The best months are July through Dec. but turtles do come every month around the last quarter moon. Ostional is 20-30 minutes north of Nosara, or apx. 2 or 2-1/2 hours south of Tamarindo.

Thank you for the helpful feedback. My husband wants to fly to San Jose as he wants to visit some of the museums. We want to see wildlife and alternative things; a hike through the rainforest would be appealing, but we're not super adventurous where we would swing through a rainforest on a cable or surf or go white water rafting (we're in our fifties, but young at heart and in pretty good shape). I like the sound of staying right near Arenal and seeing different aspects of the volcano. Maybe Tamarindo wouldn't be the place for us--too developed. I want to stay on a nice beach for a couple of nights though; it could be quiet, but where we could meet a few people over a bar and chat and have some fun. I'm feeling a little disappointed that maybe Nosara is out of the question to maybe see a turtle. This is the toughest trip I have ever had to plan. How do people feel about renting a car? When we read about the road conditions, we feel a little nervous about it.

Why is Nosara out of the question? It's not nearly as developed as Tamarindo and Dec. is the best month to see turtles at Ostional, only 20-30 minutes away! Tours to go see them can be arranged from any hotel or tour office here.
Road conditions will not be horrible in December. The only dirt road you would have to travel would be the last 40 minutes to Nosara.