16 Best Sights in Costa Rica

It's a shame that Caño Negro doesn't grab the same amount of attention in wildlife-viewing circles as other destinations in Costa Rica. Due to the recent saturation of visitors at Tortuguero National Park to the east, however, Caño Negro is starting to gain recognition among bird-watchers and nature lovers for its isolation, diversity, and abundant wildlife. As a feeding ground for both resident and migratory birds, the refuge is home to more than 350 bird species, 310 plants, and at least 160 species of mammals. The reserve is a splendid place to watch waterfowl and resident exotic animals, including cougars, jaguars, and several species of monkeys. It's also one of the best places to see a basilisk, more commonly known as the “Jesus Christ Lizard" because of its ability to run on water. Comprising the vast wetland sanctuary is a web of channels and lagoons ideal for exploring by boat, and even more so by canoe to reach remote lowlands, swamps, and seasonal floodplains. If you're not staying at one of the two lodges up here, the refuge is easily visited as a day trip from La Fortuna. Note that most Arenal-area tour operators do not actually enter the refuge (to avoid paying the $5 per person entrance fee). Tour companies often claim that the areas surrounding the park are equally spectacular, but this is not the case. Although you're likely to see wildlife on the outskirts of the refuge, you won't see a fraction of what you encounter inside the park, which lacks the parade of tour boats disturbing the habitat. For the best tour of the refuge, book through resident guide Jimmy Gutierrez at Natural Lodge Caño Negro. There are no public facilities in the park, which consists mostly of wetlands fed by the Frio River and best explored only by boat. Bring a camera, binoculars, and plenty of bug spray.  For more information, see feature at the beginning of this chapter.

This leading ecotourism and conservation wildlife refuge offers spectacular bird-watching tours and excellent naturalist-led hikes (starting at $36), a thrilling Flight of the Toucan canopy tour ($52), a chance to spend the night in the jungle ($158), or self-guided walks along forest and mangrove trails ($15). The refuge also manages a turtle-protection project and nature-education program in the local school. You can stay in basic cabins or in poolside rooms—or just come for the day.

Many regard a visit to the Jaguar Rescue Center as the highlight of their trip to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. The name is a bit misleading since there are actually no jaguars at the rescue. The original rescued animal here was an orphaned, injured jaguar cub that ultimately did not survive. His memory lives on in the facility's name. Primarily howler monkeys, sloths, birds, caimans, and lots of snakes make up the charges of the capable staff here. The goal, of course, is to return the animals to the wild, but those that are too frail are assured a permanent home here. Your admission fee for the 90-minute tour at 9:30 or 11:30 am (English or Spanish) helps fund the rescue work. (Tours in French, German, or Dutch can be arranged with advance notice.) Touching the animals is not permitted, for your safety as well as theirs.

Encompassing more than 1,000 acres of beach, mangrove swamps, and estuary, and more than 54,000 acres of ocean, this wide expanse of sand and sea will make you feel small, in the best way possible. Baula is the Spanish word for leatherback sea turtles, who have been nesting here for thousands of years. Although their numbers continue to decline, nighttime tours are led by rangers from October to February to try to catch sight of these amazing creatures. You can also spot scores of native birds like brown-footed boobies and pelicans, kayak through the mangroves and estuary, or learn to surf on some of the best waves in the country. There are no hotels or restaurants on the beach thanks to government regulation preventing development, but there is a taco stand and a ranger station open from 8 am to 4 pm at the entrance to the beach. Be sure to bring water and sunscreen, and your own shade. The park closes to the public at 6 pm and 5 pm during turtle nesting season.

One of Costa Rica's many animal-rescue facilities, Toucan Rescue Ranch is a great place to see wildlife. There are more than just toucans—the good-hearted folks here care for many sloths and owls, too. The ultimate goal is to return the animals to the wild; the frail condition of some means that this will be their permanent home. The general 2½-hour walk focuses on observing the facility's work with toucans and sloths. Tickets must be purchased in advance on the facility’s website.

An ambitious project begun two decades ago has slowly improved the survival prospects for the once-endangered great green (Ara ambiguus) and scarlet macaws (Ara macao). A daily 3 pm tour (reservations are required) of the field station acquaints visitors with the breeding and reintroduction into the wild of these colorful birds. A viewing platform set among a forest of mighty trees provides a superb vantage point from which to observe the birds crunching their almonds on nearby branches and to feel the whoosh as they zoom above your head. Throughout the 98-acre property are approximately 100 macaws.

Sad but true, one of the few places left in the country where you are guaranteed to see large wild cats, including a jaguar, is this animal rescue center. The small enclosures also hold jaguarundis, pumas, margays, and ocelots. The shelter houses other species, including otters, grissons, white-faced and spider monkeys, and scarlet macaws, all native to the area. Some animals and birds are rehabilitated and released into the wild. The larger cats are probably here for life, as it's dangerous for them to be released. Donations to the nonprofit foundation, founded in 2003 by a Swiss conservationist, are welcomed.

This family-run, 52-acre wildlife refuge is laced with four trails and houses birds, sloths, agoutis, and coatimundis. They focus on small group tours, including a coffee tour, cooking classes, and day hikes, where you'll come upon two waterfalls and a coffee plantation. If you can't make it all the way up to the Monteverde Reserve for the day hike, there's a two-hour guided twilight walk that begins each evening at 5:30 and 7:30. Reservations are required.

Playa Grande used to host the world's largest visitation of nesting giant leatherback turtles, but the number of turtles has fallen drastically in the past 20 years, from a high of 1,504 in 1989 to less than 40 currently. This loss is due to long-line commercial fishing boats that trap turtles in their nets, causing the turtles to drown, along with poaching of turtle eggs, their ingestion of plastic bags, and loss of habitat. The beach is still strictly off-limits 6 pm to 6 am from October 20 to February 15, during the peak nesting season. You can visit only as part of a guided tour with a park ranger, from the headquarters for Las Baulas National Marine Park, 100 meters (328 feet) east of Hotel Las Tortugas. If you are lucky, spotters will find a nesting turtle. At their signal, you'll walk down the beach as silently as you can, where in the darkness you'll witness the remarkable sight of a 500-pound creature digging a hole in the sand large enough to deposit up to 100 golf-ball-size eggs. About 60 days later, the sight of hundreds of hatchlings scrambling toward open water in the early morning is equally impressive. Turtle-watching takes place around high tide, which can be shortly after sunset, or in the early morning. Plan on spending one to six hours at the ranger station waiting for a turtle to come up, during which you can watch a video on the turtles in English (the guides speak mostly Spanish). You are charged only if a turtle sighting is confirmed, and if you don't see a turtle, you can choose to come back the next night for free. Visitation is limited to 60 people per night (in groups of 15 max) and unregistered visitors are not allowed. Reservations should be made in advance either by phone or at Las Baulas National Park headquarters at Playa Grande.

This wildlife refuge protects one of Costa Rica's major nesting beaches for olive ridley turtles. If you get to go when the turtles are hatching, it is a magical experience. Locals have formed an association to run the reserve on a cooperative basis, and during the first 36 hours of the arribadas (mass nesting) they are allowed to harvest the eggs, on the premise that eggs laid during this time would likely be destroyed by subsequent waves of mother turtles. Though turtles nest here year-round, the largest arribadas, with thousands of turtles nesting over the course of several nights, occur from July to December; smaller arribadas take place between January and May. They usually occur around high tide, the week of a new moon. It's best to go very early in the morning, at sunrise. People in Nosara can tell you when an arribada has begun, or check the Facebook page Asociacion de Guias Locales de Ostional (AGLO) Costa Rica. To avoid overcrowding on the beach, visitors must join a guide-led tour of the nesting and hatching areas for $20 per person. Stop at the kiosk at the entrance to the beach to arrange a tour, or at the Association of Guides office, 25 meters (82 feet) south of the beach entrance on the main road, next to Cabinas Ostional. A new bridge over the Río Montaña has made access easier from Nosara, but it's sometimes difficult to get to from the north during rainy season (May to mid-December).

With more than 200 specimens, Parque Reptilandia is the largest reptile park in Central America. Their impressive collection includes snakes, lizards, frogs, turtles, and other reptilian creatures, housed in visitor-friendly terrariums and large naturalistic habitats. Stars of the park are a Komodo dragon, a pair of 200-pound Aldabra tortoises, and Coquita the American crocodile. An easy walking trail winds through covered and open-air exhibits and can be visited, rain or shine. The well-planted gardens within the park are a haven for many native bird species. The park is open daily from 9 am to 4 pm.

This former "herpetology refuge" between Santa Ana and Escazú has opened its doors to more than just snakes: macaws, monkeys, and crocodiles reside here, too. As with all such facilities around Costa Rica, the ultimate goal is to release animals back into the wild. But for many, their fragile condition means they will live out their days here.

The refuge stretches along the southeastern coast from southeast of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca to the town of Manzanillo and on to the Panamanian border. Its limits are not clearly defined. Because of weak laws governing the conservation of refuges and the rising value of coastal land in this area, Gandoca-Manzanillo is less pristine than Cahuita National Park and continues to be developed. (Development thins out the farther you get from Puerto Viejo and the closer you get to the village of Manzanillo.) Nevertheless, the refuge still has plenty of rainforest, orey (a dark tropical wood) and jolillo (a species of palm) swamps, 10 km (6 miles) of beach where four species of turtle lay their eggs, and almost 3 square km (1 square mile) of cativo (a tropical hardwood) forest and coral reef. You'll most likely spot monkeys, sloths, and perhaps even snakes. The Gandoca estuary is a nursery for tarpon and a wallowing spot for crocodiles and caimans.

Spread over lush grounds, this wildlife center has a collection of large cages holding toucans, hawks, parrots, and free-ranging macaws as part of a breeding project for rare and endangered birds, all of which are destined for eventual release. It has 115 bird species, including such rare ones as the quetzal, fiery-billed aracari, several types of eagles, and even ostriches. An impressive mural at the back of the facility shows Costa Rica's 850 bird species painted to scale. Wingless animals include crocodiles, caimans, a boa constrictor, turtles, monkeys, wildcats, and other interesting critters. A botanical garden rounds out the offerings here. The facility was formerly known as ZooAve, and many locals still refer to it that way.

Florida's Sea Turtle Conservancy runs a visitor center and a museum with excellent animal photos, a video narrating local and natural history, and detailed discussions of the latest ecological goings-on and what you can do to help; there's a souvenir shop next door. For the committed ecotourist, the John H. Phipps Biological Field Station, which is affiliated with the conservancy and has been operating in Tortuguero since 1959, has camping areas and dorm-style quarters with a communal kitchen. If you want to get involved in the life of the turtles, help researchers track turtle migration (current research, using satellite technology, has tracked turtles as far as the Florida Keys), or help catalog the population of neotropical migrant birds, arrange a stay in advance through the center's offices in Florida.

A former teak plantation has been reforested and reinvented as a natural refuge and canopy tour in one. Jungle trails wind through part of the tropical forest, and naturalist guides do a good job of explaining the local ecology through educational tours. The reserve is home to three kinds of monkey, as well as iguanas, motmots, toucans, tanagers, and seed-chomping rodents called agoutis. In addition to the nine zip lines, the park has a large butterfly garden, waterfall rappel, suspension bridges, and an area for rescued crocodiles.