we are planning a trip the 1st week in june. we want to see arenal, monteverde, and quepos. will the buses suffice? or will we need to rent a 4WD? Is it safe to travell the roads as a couple? HELP!

<BR>You can travel either way. By bus, aircraft, or taxi. You can also rent a vehicle and be perfectly safe as a couple. Go to my website at: http://community.webtv.net/N0336/CostaRicaTravel. If you have any questions prior to your departure just let me know - Dennis

im sure you heard about the recent crime reports- use your street smarts and you should be ok

If you have only a week you are going to waste a lot of time on buses, e.g. it will take the best part of one day between Monteverde and La Fortuna. <BR>Better rent a car.

From San Jose to Jaco and then to Quepos, we hired taxis (cheaper than renting a car, but we still got to sit back and relax and enjoy the ride instead of worrying about directions). From San Jose to Arenal we rented a car because we knew we were going to want to be doing a lot of driving around Arenal and didn't want to have to rely on someone else to get us around. The roads were better than we expected them to be but still not great. It is safe to travel the roads but we were warned not to drive at night and we heeded that advice (probably more of a safety issue than a crime issue -- there's no way to see the gaping potholes at night). We also flew on a plane from Quepos to the Osa Peninsula and then back to San Jose via Quepos. We used TravelAir and that worked out well. Airfare prices were reasonable. Flights were quick (not always on time, but less than an hour late). There is frequent air service between San Jose and Quepos so you might think about flying there -- it's cheap, quick, and once you get there cabs are really inexpensive. We never used the buses so I can't help you there.

thanks for all your help. we decided to rent a 4wd and try to be very careful.