Costa Rica-
We rented a car from tricolor car rental, I worked it out with them before we got there and it was about $400 cheaper than all the others I looked at. This included the 80% coverage insurance and all the tax and fees, we rented for 2 weeks with a GPS, I absolutely recommend the GPS, it’s the best money you’ll spend. There are no addresses in costa rica so you go buy the next hotel or the next park and it’ll say something like “turn left on dirt road in 200 meters” without this there are no signs. Driving in general was totally ok, we had no problems and I felt safe. The drivers here are the worst I’ve seen in my life but if you aren’t aggressive you’ll be fine. I will say since it was the beginning of the rainy season here we got some really good deals on places, but I think if you email some of them directly they will work with you. Also, it rained maybe 3 times for an hour each time while we were here, don’t let the early rainy season scare you away. We also booked everything about 3-4 weeks ahead of time so it can be done last minute. I just used tons of trip advisor reviews and other blogs.
Day 1-3 Arenal
Do this drive during the day if you can from the San Jose airport. We stayed at Silencio Del Campo for two nights and spent the third night at Tabacon springs resort, I priced out the hot springs for two people for the day plus our regular hotel and staying at the hot springs resort for one night which includes the use of the hot springs was cheaper, plus it was a really nice hotel. We really loved both of them, Silencio has its own hot spring pool and it’s set up so you have your own cabin, breakfast included, and these are not rustic cabins, very cool place. We ate all the time in la fortuna, there are some great restaurants to choose from, our favorite was “pizza soda la parade” a local place, open air but oh boy, the food was soo good! There are some other good ones, volcano lounge and a good coffee shop, but my favorite was la parada. We hiked the trail at the arenal park which was really nice, through jungle and great volcano views. We also got a $25 massage in town, I was totally sketched out at first but it was a great massage and the women were really nice, I can’t remember the place but its next to the post office and underneath something called the indian boarding house or something like that.
Day 4-6 Monteverde
This was I think the scariest drive I’ve ever done, only for about 30 minutes of it. But the trip was great. We stayed in Hotel Belmar, I would absolutely stay there again. Excellent breakfast included as well. The rooms were so cool, it felt like a swiss ski lodge. The hotel had it’s own nature path out the back. We walked into town the first night, about 20 minutes, just needed time out of the car. We also did a guided hike in the Santa Elena reserve, the less crowded of the two here. Our guide was awesome, his name was Tobi and he was a son of the original quaker settlers of Monteverde. I would say unless you’re studied biology and conservation to hire a guide, I wouldn’t have seen any of the cool things we saw or learned about if we hadn’t had him to point them out, very worth the money. Go early before it gets too hot also. To eat we did the tree house restaurant in town which was good, also there is a taco stand next to pension santa elena (a hostel) it was really yummy, have to do take out but delicious. Also did the Don Juan coffee plantation tour here, if you love coffee I would recommend this tour, nature and coffee and chocolate!
Day 7-9 Santa Theresa
We stayed in casas de soleil here, which if I went back is probably the only place I’d stay, although there are a few other hotels that looked ok. The town is a total surfers hideaway, nothing but a dirt road, beach, and a few surf shops and restaurants. The hotel which is made up of 4 villas that can be split into apartments was amazing. There are two pools to use here also. Saraya, the owner is so sweet. She upgraded us to a nicer studio with a private pool since she knew it was our honeymoon. She booked some things for us and was wonderful to work with. I would say we ate just about every meal at “the bakery” I wish it was back home. The breakfast, lunch, dinner, all good! We also at the chameleon, which was really good typical food, which I now am addicted to. Rice, beans, plantains, avocado, and salad. The beach here is really rustic, not all inclusive resort type place, but if you want peace and relaxation it is pretty cool. We did a horseback ride from the star mountain inn which was amazing. Two hours through farms, jungle, and the beach. The inn is way up in the mountain on this dirt road and surrounded by howler monkeys, it was awesome, if you like horses you should definitely do this. We were going to stay here 4 nights but just kind of got bored and done with the dusty dirt road so we moved on and drove back to the ferry to punarenas, which was very easy to take if you want to get over to the Nicoya peninsula.
Day 10-13 Manuel Antonio
We stayed at la mansion inn, best view I’ve ever had in my life. We’d been told by friends to stop at a few different restaurants here because of the views but nothing compared to our hotel, If you can’t stay here go for a drink or dinner or lunch, the view from the roof top pool and patio cannot be compared with. The rooms were nice, we had our own patio with a little grass area and the service was great. The best meals we had here were at places we ended up going back to multiple times, sanchos taco’s on the side of the road across from the barba roja was by far the best, we went 3 times in 2 days, it was really cheap too. We ate at la avion, it was ok and barba roja, same, ok. In quepos town we ate at restaurant el jardin del mar twice, awesome cosada and they will really make you whatever you want, I ended up not eating meat much this trip and they would do anything here to accommodate me, it’s right across form banco national and looks like a local place, really good and nice people. Here we did a hike through manuel Antonio park, got flagged down on the side of the road and ended up just going with it, I had wanted to hire someone anyways eventhough this wasn’t how I pictured it happening, we saw sloths and monkey and a deer, lizards, good stuff. The swimming here at beach 3 was amazing. Like a bathtub and really calm, a must do if you like ocean swimming. We also went fishing, my husband likes to fish and really wanted to try it. It was the off season so doing the bigger boats on our own was going to run about $1000 for the two of us, we ended up finding a local fisherman who is insured and takes people out to take us at a much much better price, no shade but it was a fun time and my husband caught some good fish. It was this guy http://zapatafishing.com. Breakfast was included at our hotel but we went a bunch of times for coffee at café milagro, really good coffee and carrot cake.
Last night we stayed at Grano de Oro in san jose. We just stayed at the hotel. Walked around a little but decided it was a crappy area and nothing for us, not sure I’d want to be out after dark, although we went to the airport at 430 the next day and passed the kids at the discoteque and it looked fine to me. The hotel was really nice, I loved it. We had dinner in the restaurant, pretty expensive and not the best food I had but still good.
The sun down here is intense, super intense. And I’m usually ok in the sun. The fishing day I wore 50 and re-applied 30 and still got red. This isn’t the place for oil baking suntans.
Also, do not bring travelers checks. No one accepts them and you’ll spend a lot of time and more money to change them at the bank. Best to just use the ATM’s down here, none of them charged a fee and you don’t have to wait. Something weird with the banks down here is you could seriously be in line for two hours waiting to just change a few hundred in travelers checks. Most places take American money too, I think you get the best deal using colones though.