Top Tips For Traveling In Costa Rica! | Planning your first visit

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Costa Rica is a wonderful country with friendly people, beautiful beaches and amazing jungle and wildlife. But bring your smarts, to avoid problems.

1. Beach,educational,wildlife, relaxing, cultural. You should prioritize, spiritual
It is good to think about what you want to get out of the trip, there are so many options. Learn to make pottery the traditional way, make tortillas, pick and grind coffee. See sloths etc
2. Which airport? Liberia or San Jose (Juan Santamaria)
There are 2 airports, Liberia (LIR) and San Jose (SJO). Both are clean and efficient and eye wateringly expensive food drink and souvenirs. Neither town has much to offer. At a push there is an interesting half day tour in San Jose, but only really if you need to fill your time. Best to get to your first nights accommodation if you can, rather than a night in an airport hotel
3. The people
In general the people are friendly and welcoming to visitors. You should take time to make some new friends. But just be aware there is an element out there looking to take
advantage and earn money out of you unfairly
4. Seeing the animals and sea life- rainforest walk, boat trip. Stay quiet
In the last month, doing no tours and just staying in my little town I have seen turtles, humpback whales, sharks, crocodiles, sloths, monkeys, iguanas, mapaches. Costa Rica has incredibly plentiful and diverse wildlife. When you are booking a wildlife tour, ask the guide what they have seen in the last few days. Stay quiet, it is not a zoo so if you make noise the animals will go away.
5. Car rental
Book well in advance, research if you need to pay the CDW or if it is covered on your card. They will try to sell it to you
6. Petty theft
Be aware of petty theft, don’t leave things in the car, on the beach, watch your wallet and phone
7. Packlightly,leave expensive jewelry at home
You won’t be dressing for dinner often, so pack lightly, a carry on bag should be enough. Light cottons are great. Leave the

jewelry at home, otherwise it will be a stress if you are leaving it in your car/hotel room.
8. Internal ‘puddle jumper’ flights are great
Take advantage of the great network of local 12 seater puddle jumper planes. Very good and reasonably priced. They use San Jose as a hub. A 5 hour drive is a 30 minute flight. Luggage limits
9. Use airbnbs and small local hotels
There are some beautiful chain hotels such as Four Seasons and Marriott, but try to get the local experience, small hotels and airbnbs. The all inclusives really seal your off in a bubble, get out and experience the local flavor
10.Each beach town is completely different to the next
Research your beaches carefully. Each one has its own unique flavor. Some you need a car, some you don't. Some black beaches some white, surf or no, rocky or swimming beach
11. It is hot
From 11am to 3pm it is hot hot hot. If you have activities, plan them for early or late in the day. Bring lots of water and sunscreen
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You should have included info on best way to get around if you don't want to rent car

butcheyler

Great tips! but if you plan to go into the mountains, youll need a rain jacket and a sweater and some pants. Also, dont forget your hiking boots or running shoes

TheThomaTube

Crazy, I was doing some research on Costa since I am coming in a few week….Turns out you are in the condo we rented out for the the 3 months in this video lol.

christiankaider

We're a few days into our trip in Costa Rica and so far we've been impressed by the range of Airbnb's on offer. We're long term travellers, so having a kitchen comes in very handy. A lot of places seem to have Netflix as well, which is a nice bonus!

BucketListTravellers

I WATCHED BOTH OF YOUR VIDEOS AND WANT TO SAY THANK YOU FOR MAKING THEM. THEY HAVE TRULY HELPED ME PUT TOGETHER MY COST RICA VACATION. I ESPECIALLY
APPRECIATE YOUR HONEST WAY OF COMMUNICATING. AWESOME RESOURCE! THANK YOU!

kevinmcguigan

Thanks for the advice Rich! Planning a trip to CR in a few months, so excited to finally see firsthand what Pura Vida means :)

DigiBentoBox

Thank you so much for your advice on traveling in Costa Rica. Thank goodness I listen to your advice about getting an SUV. We only got a 2 Wheel SUV instead of a four-wheel-drive and it turned out OK. We were lucky. On the peninsula we ran into very bad gravel roads. That were so badly damaged by water we only averaged 20 km. I heard your voice ringing in my ear saying if the mapping program says an hour and a half plan on four hours. That happened to us multiple times. The worst was crossing streams that weren’t on the map. Evidently they didn’t exist a couple of days before we arrived. There were some that were so bad we could not cross them. So we had to go back and retrace our route on very painfully slow horrible roads. I have never seen roads in such terrible condition. One local described it as the road crisis in Costa Rica.
Would you please make a video that included a map of the paved roads versus the non-paid roads. Evidently the mapping programs do not distinguish between the two. I wish they did. If you need footage of actual roads with photographs and videos I will be glad to email them to you. We changed our plans on three different days because the roads were in such a bad condition. Going over that many bumps for that many hours actually made my body hurt

dr.kathyteisinger

Thanks for sharing! It helped us when travelling Costa Rica (and vlogging). I highly suggest getting a car. It was really nice having option to go off beaten path.. away from crowds and we found some hidden gems we wouldn’t have found otherwise.

ZoeBraniganPipe

Nice I learned something new bc I didn’t know about the “car watchers!” Interesting profession to find yourself in.

HellaBella

What great no advise, thanks Rich really useful. My wife and I are coming over to Costa Rica in March for 12 days so your videos are invaluable. Haven't planned our itinerary yet but taking on board everything you're saying. Would be really interested if you could recommend a local travel guide please ?

travelbug

I remember Tamarindo from the 1984. That whole area was like the wild west of CR. Another wild west area was the oso peninsula, those were the days.

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