getting ready for costa rica!
Our Costa Rica trip is coming up really soon and for us, that means two things:
Reviewing our itinerary and travel day game-plan with the kids.
We do this with our Family Discovery Deck! Think of it as a cross between a visual itinerary and a vision board.
Packing, packing, packing. We asked our friend, Alanna, from Gabbett’s on the Go and she shared her Ultimate Costa Rica Packing List, which I can’t recommend more! We read through these together and then each kid made their own list on our Custom Packing Lists.
our itinerary
We have a total of 8 days in Costa Rica in spring. Subtract a day on either end for travel arrival / departure and we functionally have 6 days. Here’s our rough plan:
Fly into San Jose
Arrive at hotel (I’ll share more details when we get back!)
Free day
Arrive at hotel (I’ll share more details when we get back!)
Some other cool options we considered but couldn’t work in:
getting kids onboard with the plan
I developed our Family Discovery Deck to help families prep kids for trips. It cuts down on the “when are we leaving for the airport” and “what’s next?” questions when you’re in GO-time.
We review the deck 2 times: once about a month out. We do this in conjunction with our Planning Conversation Cards. Then I go back, book activities, transfers and final items. Then we review again about a week out and get everyone on the same page. I can’t explain how helpful this has been for our family and for my sanity as a mom!
What does this look like? Super low tech, I promise. I pull it up on my phone, connect to our TV and do a screen mirroring. We play some local music and make a fun night out of it!
What do we talk about? Our tentative plan, our must-haves, our trip vision, what kinds of activities we want to use. We also review - what will the food look like? What are some basic phrases we can learn? What do we do in an emergency?
This preparation cuts down on anxiety, whining and questions. We tell the kids, when we are moving out the door, it’s “game time” and we can’t answer questions. The discovery deck dedicates that necessary time for discussion and questions. It also makes the trip more impactful and memorable for everyone!
packing
As I mentioned, I love Alanna’s Ultimate Costa Rica Packing List. We are going in DRY season but still planning everything to be waterproof or quick dry since we will be in the jungle for part of the trip. Here’s what we BOUGHT for the trip that we didn’t already have on hand:
Waterproof convertible pants / shorts
Quick dry shirts / rash guards
New hiking boots (that we need to break in SOON!)
New monster trucks for the toddler to open on the airplane
Waterproof iPhone cases
Sunhats
Reef safe sunscreen
Kid-friendly binoculars
Small packable umbrella
Or to make it easier, just visit Alanna’s Amazon storefront for everything you need.
Here’s other stuff we are packing, that we already had on hand:
Crocs
DEET Bug Spray
Swimsuits
Cash
Travel docs and copies
Sunglasses
what we are most excited for…
Experiences in nature are extremely restful for me. Forests and mountains are where I feel most at home. Animal encounters (responsibly) are also always memorable for kids. Fingers crossed we see a sloth!