The best time to visit Costa Rica is January after the holiday peak season tourist crowds head home. The rains end in December but the forests remain lush into the new year while dry sunny weather prevails on the beaches. It's one of the best times for wildlife when tropical species like monkeys … [Read more...]
Travel
Practical travel information like transportation options, driving, safety, health, packing, lodging, holidays, festivals, money and much more. Includes a section on weather, seasons, crowds and pricing to help you decide the best time to visit
Here Comes the Rain Again
The 2019 Costa Rica rainy season arrived along with the intertropical convergence zone right on schedule at the beginning of May and June is shaping up to be slightly wetter than average. The Costa Rican Emergency Alert System - Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias … [Read more...]
Uber in Costa Rica – Not for Travelers
Unlicensed private taxi services are not legal in Costa Rica. Despite this Uber invoked some technicalities and began weirdly convoluted and limited operations in August of 2015. As of mid 2019 legalization of Uber, Lyft and other ride shares has failed. However the government announced it will … [Read more...]
How to Rent a Car in Costa Rica
Renting a car in Costa Rica can be different - for example needing to decide whether 4WD is necessary or not. Other aspects are just plain bizarre, like the bumpy number requirement. If you want to skip all the fascinating quirks and just take the path of least resistance we've also written … [Read more...]
The Most Dangerous Thing in Costa Rica
Can you guess what danger is hiding in plain sight in this photo of a room with a view in Costa Rica...? There are a lot of candidates for the most treacherous, risky, menacing peril awaiting visitors to Costa Rica - crocodiles in the estuaries, dengue mosquitoes in the swamps, deadly vipers … [Read more...]
Getting the Best Airfare to Costa Rica
Any time you travel to Costa Rica your best bet for getting cheap airfare is to know a good deal when you see one. The second most important thing to know when shopping for flights is that cheapest is almost never the best. The third and maybe most important is that finding the least expensive … [Read more...]
Traveler’s Health Tips
Some basic planning and precautions can help keep you healthy and happy while traveling. Where to Get Care Emergencies Dial 911 toll free, and no coin required at a pay phone for emergency assistance. The Red Cross Rescue unit may be reached directly at 128 throughout the country (2221-5818 in San … [Read more...]
Preventing Theft
Each time I update this page I struggle to figure out how to get people to take crime seriously without making Costa Rica sound like a war zone. What the tourist board wants everyone to know is that "Costa Rica has the lowest crime rate of any Central American country", but this a dubious … [Read more...]
Costa Rica Small Boats – Panga, Lancha, Ferry & Raft
Shortcuts - boating across may be much faster than driving around a body of water in Costa Rica. For example the boat ride across the Gulf of Nicoya from Jacó on the mainland to Montezuma on the peninsula (see orange line below) takes about an hour while driving around takes over four … [Read more...]
Riders on the Storm(s)
Costa Rica Rainy Season Travel A lot of people ask us "will there be any sun if I go to the beach in rainy season?" but a better question might be "is it possible to go to the beach in rainy season?" We spent this August and an unexpected bit of September traveling all over Costa Rica gathering … [Read more...]
Current Storms in Costa Rica
The U.S. NOAA and National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center is predicting precipitation building and tropical depression/storm formation on the Pacific side in late May 2019 leading to higher than normal rainfall across Costa Rica by early June. Costa Rica Weather Forecasts You Should … [Read more...]
Traffic Violations, Citations & Fines in Costa Rica
Most of Costa Rica's traffic laws are familiar to drivers from anywhere even if the tendency to treat the laws as suggestions comes as a surprise. Like the U.S. and all of Central America, Costa Ricans drive on the right hand side of the road (except when they don't feel like it) and most … [Read more...]
You GOTTA Be Kidding – Stupidity on the Roads
Never underestimate the sheer stupidity possible Costa Rica's roads. In 40 years of driving in some of the most infamous countries in the world I’ve never seen anything like it. The first time I drove down the ramp onto the new section of the PanAmerican between Liberia and Canas in Guanacaste I … [Read more...]
Flights Worth Taking
It's tempting to look at a 25 minute flight time compared with a four hour drive and think it's an obvious choice but it's often misleading. We recommend flying on a few select routes where a small plane is the cheapest and fastest transport What are the Problems with Flying A few things … [Read more...]
Natural Disasters in Costa Rica
Earthquakes Earthquakes are quite common in Costa Rica with small ones occurring daily and tremors strong enough to feel a few times a year. Major quakes strike about once a decade but no tourist has ever been killed or seriously injured by an earthquake in Costa Rica. The deadliest earthquake … [Read more...]
La Nada, La Niña & El Niño in Costa Rica
Warm water in the Pacific Ocean influences weather patterns around the world in a phenomenon called El Niño while cool water and the associated weather patterns are refereed to as La Niña. How it happens and the worldwide impacts are explained in the video below from the U.S. National Oceanic and … [Read more...]
Costa Rica’s Domestic Airlines
A few domestic airlines serve Costa Rica with scheduled flights. The well known premium tourist airline, NatureAir, ceased operations in January 2018 and a pack of newcomers propose to pick up the slack for the 2019 travel season - Green Airways, Aerobell, SkyWay, and TAC all have, or promise to … [Read more...]
Here Comes the Dry Season
Pacific ocean surface temperature increases accentuate the seasonal shift in the inter-tropical convergence zone amplifying the trade winds across the 10th parallel... ...in other words... The 2018 Rainy Season Might End Early in Costa Rica! The rains usually taper off between late … [Read more...]
Nature Air Grounded
Update January 21, 2019 - One year after shutting down Nature Air has made a financial settlement with Lloyd's of London and announced that they are accepting offers of financing and job applications for all positions in hopes of eventually resuming operations. No new information was provided about … [Read more...]
Strikes, Protests & Road Blocks – Explained & Summarized
The huelga nacional (national strike) in Costa Rica is complicated. The simple version is that in the first part of September 2018 some union workers walked off their government jobs and began protesting the legislature's tax and spending reform plan. After about six weeks the strikes were … [Read more...]