travel diaries: costa rica
All about our Costa Rica trip!
We just back from our trip to Costa Rica and I’m so excited to tell you guys about it.
Here’s a link to our abbreviated itinerary.
Let’s get into it!
the basics
Why Costa Rica
Costa Rica is known as being an incredible destination for families and it absolutely lives up to it’s reputation. The combination of adventure and relaxation, jungle and beaches, the wildlife, kid friendly food and family focused vibe is perfect for a family trip. In fact, I’m kind of embarrassed that it took us so long to get to Costa Rica! For why, refer to this blog post.
When We Went
We traveled during the kids’ spring break in early April. We did have to travel over Easter, which presents some but not insurmountable challenges / traffic in Costa Rica.
Transport
We did NOT rent a car on this trip. I was nervous about driving in Costa Rica for the first time and I knew the drive times were long and complicated. If we go back, I would consider renting a car next time. We used private transfers with Ride CR, which I would highly recommend! You can also work with a local agency for support on transport, lodging and activities - highly recommend Pacific Trade Winds.
The Destinations
The most common three stops on a family trip to Costa Rica are: (1) Monteverde Cloud Forest, (2) Arenal Volcano / La Fortuna Area and (3) Manuel Antonio National Park / Quepos for a beach-jungle combo. We picked options (2) and (3) for this trip based on our flights being into / out of San Jose Airport. Overall, these were great intros to Costa Rica!
Next time, I would go with Option (1), Monteverde and maybe the Nicoya Peninsula OR some lesser known destinations.
How We Prepared
My buddy at Gabbett’s on the Go has the best packing list. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we printed out her packing list, reviewed it with the kids and had them use our packing checklist template to make their own lists. We also got the kids ready for our trip using our Discovery Deck. We talked about the plan for each day, timing for travel days, the destinations, the food and overall logistics.
Snapshot of our Stops / Booking Links
Here’s everything we did!
Day 1: Don Juan Coffee & Chocolate Tour: La Fortuna, hotel link
Day 2: Sloth Tour & Night tour: La Fortuna
Day 3: Hot Springs Day Pass (Original Plan): La Fortuna
Hanging Bridges WITH Guide: La Fortuna
Hanging Bridges Without Guide: La Fortuna
Day 4: Transport to second hotel: Manuel Antonio
Day 5: Casual Beach Day
Day 6: Guided tour at Manuel Antonio National Park
Day 7: Transport to hotel near San Jose ahead of our flight.
Day 8: Flight home
travel day
Just survive & arrive!
We had a 9 am flight out of our home airport. We traveled during a partial government shutdown, which had impacted security lines in a number of airports. We overprepared with:
1: Making sure our TSA Pre-Check was listed on all of our tickets
2: Enrolling in a free CLEAR trial
And then my favorite tip!
3: Enrolling in TSA Pre-Check touchless ID in the airport app. This was hands down, the fastest way to get through security and I recommend it 10/10.
Since I don’t take videos / photos in airport security lines, I have zero footage for you guys, but here’s a solid explanation from NBC.
We flew United direct to San Jose, arranged a private transfer for the 4 hour drive to La Fortuna. We stopped along the way for some lunch and cold frozen fruit drinks or batidos, my absolute favorite thing ever. I love the soursop / guanabana flavor.
OUR HOTEL
I really loved this hotel! It was out of the craziness of downtown La Fortuna, had an incredibly warm (like borderline hot spring) pool and onsite restaurant that was great. It was a lovely retreat to return to after a busy day of adventuring.
We also celebrated Kid #2’s birthday here and the staff were incredible. They surprised us with a cake when we arrived and then gave us a SECOND treat on his birthday itself.
The villas onsite are super family friendly.
Here’s the booking link.
day 1: chocolate & coffee farm tour
Don Juan Coffee & Chocolate Tour Booking Link!
We headed to Don Juan for a coffee and chocolate tour and tasting. Couple of notes:
Be sure to tell your transport you are going to the tour and not to the farm, which is way up in the mountains.
Recommend the 9 AM tour because it gets crowded.
Bring lots of bug spray
Be sure you have return transport because it’s about 1 km outside of town.
The tour was one of our fav activities. It was really multi-sensory, which is great for kids. We got to smash cacao pods and taste what was inside, smell the stinky fermentation process used to extract flavor from the cacao and then make our own chocolate from pure cacao paste. We also got to taste more finished products and enjoy the incredible gift shop. On the coffee portion, the kids were still engaged, which really surprised me. We got to feel the beans at different phases and one of my kiddos even drank a small cup of Costa Rican coffee. I cannot recommend this activity enough!
day 2: Sloth tour & night walk
Sloth Tour Booking Link
Night tour Booking Link
Bright and early (like 5:45 AM early), we set out for our sloth tour. This sounds insane but since Costa Rica is 2 hours behind the East Coast, the kids were up anyways.
We had a private tour pick us up from the hotel. We didn’t want to rent a car on this trip (see the Transport section for more). Zoo’s are not a thing in Costa Rica. There are some wildlife sanctuaries but we actually just drove through neighborhoods and even one construction site that the sloths are known to frequent. Honestly, this made the experience even cooler. I would NOT try to do this without a guide. Sloths are so brown and slow moving, they look like lumps in a tree. We would have never seen them without the guide! They had a wildlife spotting scope that you could attach an iphone to. The toucans were incredible too. This was super cool because even my toddler could see the sloths! 10/10 recommend this activity! We loved going with Callidryas Tours and Byron was our tour guide!
Night tour, however, can be SUPER hit or miss. It was really crowded on the night we went and the wildlife experience is kind of reduced by the tons of tourists and flashlights everywhere. However, we wouldn’t have seen the red eyed tree frog or the fur de lance snake without this experience so, kind of a toss up.
day 3: Mistico hanging bridges
Hot Springs Day Pass (Original Plan)
We originally were scheduled to go to hot springs on this day BUT the pools at our hotel were so warm that it was already like we were doing a hot spring so we decided to do something else instead. Here’s the hot springs day we originally had planned:
The hanging bridges were a cool experience. You can either add ziplining on or you can do it without. Since we did NOT zipline on this trip, it was a fun, adventurous experience. The hike in total was about 3 miles with some hills.
We did this with a guide to see wildlife. You can do it with or without. We saw some awesome birds and the red, blue jean frog (definitely not his real name but I’m obsessed). This guy was so tiny, we absolutely would have missed him without the guide!
This was a super fun half day!
Day 4: Transport to Manuel Antonio
We then arranged private transit to Manuel Antonio. This is a LONG drive and I really recommend dramamine all around, even for me and my husband, who normally never get car sick. We stopped and had a delicious lunch at a soda, or local cafe. We also stopped at the Crocodile bridge. Saw only 2 crocodiles because of the construction but it also had a great gift shop.
OUR HOTEL: La Vela Boutique Hotel, Manuel Antonio
This was another incredible hotel! This is in a great location, especially if you don’t have a car. It’s a flat walk to the beach and a 2 minute walk to the entrance to the national park. We were able to easily get taxis at the taxi stand, except for one time, when I should have sent a what’s app message to some drivers, to arrange it. That’s on me. Anyways, loved it!
Here’s the booking link.
Day 5: Manuel Antonio Beach
We spent the morning at the beach. When you walk up to the beach, there will be people offering umbrellas, canopies and chairs. Do yourself a favor and get them to help you. We paid about 20 colones / $40 and the sun protection is desperately needed. You can also rent boogie boards from these guys or ask them to grab you a fresh batido from the shops across the street. Even still, my kids and husband got pretty sunburnt so definitely remember to re-apply!
Unfortunately, this afternoon, my husband got a case of food poisoning. We think this was due to some pickled veggies on the side of a taco that didn’t sit well. He got really dehydrated. Thankfully, it was easy to get to a pharmacy for some meds and to a grocery store for some Gatorade and electrolytes to replenish. He was out of commission for about 2 days.
Day 6: Manuel Antonio National Park
Guided tour at Manuel Antonio National Park
This was our big day at Manuel Antonio National Park. This gets crowded and has strict entrance rules. Here’s the site to familiarize yourself. Some stuff like - only spray bug spray in the bathrooms and no plastic containers at all in the park are really key.
Again, we did a guided tour, this time with Iguana Tours, which I loved! Our guide, Andy, had a science background and taught us so much. And as an avid zoo go-er and Animal Planet watcher, it takes a lot for me to hear NEW rainforest facts. We spotted so many animals! Sloths, tons of monkeys, and rare frogs.
Day 7: TRANSPORT TO SAN JOSE AHEAD OF OUR FLIGHT
We did a casual beach morning and then did the 3 hour drive to San Jose in the afternoon. We did this to avoid spending a long morning driving before a travel day, which I would really recommend.
HEAD HOME!
Easy shuttle to the airport, and great food court at the San Jose airport. And home! Pura Vida, we can’t wait to go back.
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