My father-in-law wants to rent a villa in the Finca Nosara area of Guanacaste, and since he’s floating the bill for the villa, we’re doing as he asks. We plan to stay there for 4 nights, as we only have 3 couples in the 4-bedroom villa for 4 nights, and to keep it for longer when it’s just us and Jen’s father-in-law and girlfriend makes little sense.
When we look around to see what to do for the other 3 nights, it’s SOO confusing. Renting a car sounds like a major pain in the butt, and most places seem hours away, with guardrail-less mountain roads. Jen and I would love to get a little deeper into the rainforest type of scenario, and likely will get a hotel instead of another villa, but everything seems so far away (by car).
I’d love any recommendations, and I might be a bit broad in my request, but that’s because we truly are stumped.
Things are a bit difficult to get to in CR. The roads aren’t very good and the signage isn’t much better. If you’re going any distance, you can grab a flight – not that expensive and easier than driving any significant distance. If you drive, get a navi system or at very least GOOD maps. There are several good places to see but in depends on your interests – Montaverde and Manuel Antonio N.P. are probably good places to check out.
I’m forgetting somewhere…let me give it some thought.
Nowhere else - enjoying the villa for a few days, then hoping to get somewhere else, something more Costa Rican than just another beautiful house on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Rainforests, waterfalls, monkeys - all that stuff.
The roads are not smooth but are not dangerous. Tours to the jungle, volcano, canopy zip line are easily available. The people are great and are quite free to express themselves and succeed. When we visited there was no military visible anywhere.
Mandatory education through 12th grade. We visited several black sand beaches
We stayed at a luxury sports fishing resort and their 12 mile black sand beach had us and a nanny with two kids, just wild.
Enjoy the trip and very good coffee BTW.
I second Steve’s recommendation to fly down to Osa. The flights are cheap and short, as long as you don’t mind propeller planes or have a ton of luggage, and there are a number of inexpensive and quite nice hotels. Your hotel will be able to book you a great hike in Corcovado, the enormous state park, or whale watching or scuba diving or rafting (weather and season dependent). The beach near my hotel was nothing special, but it was deserted, which was great.
It’s far away from everything. Monkeys came running through myhotel dining room and stole bananas in the morning and a sloth lived in the tree above the pool. It was great.
There’s not a whole lot in Guanacaste besides the beaches/ocean activities.
The roads are safe and in decent shape (mostly paved, 4WD not necessary), but navigation is a nightmare. A GPS/nav system is indispensible.
IIRC correctly it’s maybe four hours drive to the rain forest area from Guanacaste, which is well worth doing. The Arenal volcano area is also worth the trip, and not far from the cloud forests – you could probably do them both from one base. I’d rent a car and find somewhere in that area to stay for 2-3 nights.
Thanks, all! Great stuff! I’m finding the same as what Corey said, that there’s not much to see in Guanacaste besides the beaches/ocean, and we have plenty of that already, plus we have Mexico just a short flight south. I definitely want to take a look at something rainforest-like.
Jen’s taking a look at Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort
I’ve stayed at the Andaz Papagayo. It’s a gorgeous property. It’s also a bit isolated – there’s not much to do there besides beach activities/sit by the pool types of things, and there’s nothing else within a 30-minute drive of the hotel besides the Four Seasons, which is around the corner. The service is well-meaning but a bit erratic (they may have worked out some kinks since then, since they had only been open two months when I was there), and the concierge is terrible.
I stayed at a resort on the same grounds as the Four Seasons in Papagayo. It is fairly easy to find reputable jungle tours, fishing trips, etc. at better prices than offered through the resorts. Outside of fishing, it is not possible to do many of the cool things without a long drive to/from name your activity.
Just out of curiosity what resort is on the same grounds as the 4 seasons. We stayed there and loved it but the prices have tripled. Would be nice to look at this other resort. We took tours in to the rain forest which worked well. They were set up by the 4 Seasons.
I will say we had great views, very large villas, and wildlife galore, but no beach to rival the Four Seasons. We had a golf cart and could have dinner there or schedule golf if we wanted. Not a bad place.
Manuel Antonio is killer but that not a day trip from where you are starting and you don’t want to drive at night coming back, you’ll never make it.
CR has many national parks and a few near you. Ask the resort if they can recommend a guide, you need one, and do an all day nature hike. Guides will pick you up. I know, sounds silly. I’ll post pictures of the stuff we saw, amazing.
Here’s another CR thread in travel with my thoughts.
Their Constitution has forbidden a standing military since 1949. It does have a public security force, whose role includes law enforcement and internal security. For this reason Costa Rica is the headquarters for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and also the United Nations’ University for Peace in1987.
When Costa Rican President Oscar Arias spoke before the U.S. Congress, he said,
“I belong to a small country, that was not afraid to abolish its army in order to increase its strength. In my homeland you will not find a single tank, a single artillery piece, a single warship or a single military helicopter… Today we threaten no one, neither our own people nor our neighbors. Such threats are absent not because we lack tanks but because there are few of us who are hungry, illiterate or unemployed.”
Arias was addressing Congress because of his role in negotiating peace in the Contra war in neighboring Nicaragua. The United States had employed strenuous economic and diplomatic arm-twisting in hopes of getting Costa Rica to rearm and join it in fighting the Contras. When that effort failed, the Reagan administration was greatly annoyed. But two months after Arias’ Washington speech, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Wiki…
The locals will tell you that Nicaragua plays nice because CR has control of the electricity switch.
I should have said when taken to see their Presidents house you can see no guards but if you visit our Marines who are dispatched there you see it is guarded well??
When are you going?? I’ll be in Dominical (world-class surfing!) from December 27th thru January 4th. Dominical is very laid back and easy going with some GREAT little restaurants and things to do.
I’ve got plenty of room in the house and I can check the hotel for availability that I also have.
Driving in Costa Rica is MUCH better these days. Driving along the Pacific coast is very easy with the new highway.