my girlfriend and i are flying in to liberia on 3/3 and have to fly out of san jose on the 15th. we would like to see tamarindo, samara, montezuma, arenal and manuel antonio/dominical. am i crazy to think we can do all of this without driving half of our trip away???

danlotec, I recommend you allow 3 nights per stop. This will be fast enough for variety, but slow enough to enjoy activities in each location. Therefore you may have to trim your list down.

Don't forget you can't travel too fast. Once you get off the main highway, the roads can be narrow, unpaved, or full of potholes, and also you can get stuck behind a truck.

Costa Rica is a beautiful country.

danlotec,
You'll have to eliminate one of these, I think. My choice would be Samara. Tamarindo is an easy one hour plus a few minutes drive from the Liberia airport. Easy to get to on the day you arrive.

On the 6th, drive down to Montezuma (it will take a good part of the day--start early). 3 nights Montezuma.

On the 9th, drive to Manuel Antonio. About 4.5-5 hours. Visit Dominical on a day trip. 3 nights is plenty. That gives you one day to go to Domincal, one day to enjoy the park, which is the main draw for Manuel Antonio and full of wildlife!

From there, on the 12th, drive up to Arenal (about 6 hours). 2 nights is okay here. That's not to say that 3 wouldn't be better, but you can enjoy it in 2 nights. One full day will allow for hot springs, Hanging Bridges, or hiking the volcano, visiting La Fortuna, doing some zip lines, there are a lot of 2-3 hour activities to choose from. You really wouldn't have to leave until afternoon of the second day, so you'd have more like a day and a half here. You could enjoy the hot springs on the night of your arrival, since the other activities are daytime events, and the hot springs CAN be done at night--in fact it is enjoyable at night!

2.5 hour drive back to San Jose, spend the night of the 14th there. If your flight is in the afternoon, you wouldn't have to spend that last night near the airport. You could spend it at Arenal. That means you could add on an extra night anywhere along the way.

Just some suggesitons. . .3 long drives during 12 days isn't too bad! Enjoy! Gee, it's right around the corner!

shillmac - thanks so much for the advice, i was kind of thinking it might be much, that helps immensely!!!

shillmac, you are terrific to help with such detailed itinerary plans. I hope you'll be around to help when I start planning my trip to CR. When? When I can talk my husband into taking enough time off work . . . hopefully 2007.

Anyway, way to go, shillmac!

Con mucho gusto. . .just living vicariously. I enjoyed the little mental trip last night as I was playing with your itinerary, danlotec!

BayouGal, hope you don't have to wait that long! Remind your husband that there will always be work! Costa Rica as many of us have known it is changing fast!

i keep hearing horror stories about that road from playa naranja to paquera. how bad is it??? will that be thw worst road i will see. i have done some serious 4x4 ing in utah, how bad could it be...

You've probably seen as bad before. It is bad, though. We were on it in July, and it was extremely slow going--very deep ruts for about 35km. It bounced us around pretty good, but we survived. We'd actually been on it before when it wasn't quite so bad. Of course, since July, there has been a LOT of rain, and I'm sure that didn't help the situation. . .

It was, by far, the worst road we've ever been on in CR. Monteverde didn't even come close. Overall, we've always thought most of the main roads were decent--some surprisingly so. It's all relative to what one is used to, I think. I'm guessing you won't be all that surprised. . .