How to get the most out of a quick trip to Costa Rica! From the beaches to the jungle and all the waterfalls in between. If you’re short on time, but want to see it all this is the perfect itinerary for you.

La Fortuna Waterfall

Day 1:

• Fly into San Jose International Airport (take the first flight of the morning, the earlier you arrive the better). Pick up a rental car at the Airport.
• Drive to La Fortuna, Alajuela which is where the Arenal Volcano is. 2 hour drive from Airport.

Our Rental Car from Avis with 4-wheel drive, a must on Costa Rican Roads

• Hike to La Fortuna Waterfall. There is a $15 admission fee and the park is only open 7am-5pm. We arrived just after 5 and were abruptly shut down. We went back first thing in the morning and had the place to ourselves. The waterfall is about 500 steps down. Be sure to stop at the first look out for great views of it from above.

• Hike to one of the volcano observation points. Unfortunately, it was almost dark when we arrived and way too cloudy to make the observation points worth a visit.
• Enjoy the natural hot springs and resort pools with volcano views. We stayed at Los Lagos Resort. La Fortuna is filled with similar resorts that can be booked pretty cheap through booking.com. The swim up pool bar is what sold us on Los Lagos, but it was a bit too touristy and family oriented for my liking. There were plenty of pools to grab a drink and have a pool with no kids to ourselves none the less.

Not the volcano. It was too cloudy to photograph, but the Arenal Volcano is right behind this.

Day 2:

• Drive to Monte Verde. 2 hour drive plus or minus a half hour depending on your aggression on the dirt roads.
• Go canyoning with Finca Modelo Ecologica. This waterfall repelling adventure includes repelling down a 150ft waterfall. It’ll get your adrenaline pumping, cool you off and only takes a few hours so it fits nicely into the schedule to give you a taste of canyoning. Book the 11am tour which ends around 1/2ish. Cost $79.

Blurry photos from our guide, but you get the idea- It was a blast!

• Ziplining at 100% Adventura. This is THE place to go ziplining and it’s just down the road from canyoning so you can make it to the 3pm tour. They start you off with typical seated position ziplining then introduce you to the superman style, which is way more fun. One of the superman style runs is 2km long (that’s over a mile!) and is the longest in Latin America. I can’t say enough great things about this company. Although the groups are big you spread out quickly through the course and all the staff is awesome – full of jokes. The course ends with a Tarzan free fall swing. It’s optional, but an absolute must 😉 Cost $53

The 2km long superman zipline and Tarzan swing (not pictured because it was too fast) were the best.

• Climb the Ficus Tree. Ficus trees are common in the area and grow in a way that leaves the center hollow. One in particular is hollowed up to almost 100 ft so you can climb all the way to the top of the canopy. It shows up on google maps as “Ficus Tree Climbing”. There is no parking unless you pull off the dirt road. We walked from our hotel, Cabañas Bosques de Paz (see where to stay below). On Perro Negro road you will find a trail to the left directly before the road forks. Take this trail until it looks like it splits and go left then keep going straight. There are a number of ficus trees, but you can’t miss this one. If you’re not sure it’s the one you aren’t there. We also saw plenty of monkey friends up in the top of the canopy with us 🙂 Make sure to bring some drinks and hangout for awhile. We went first thing in the morning so enjoyed champagne at the top.

Gives you an idea of the size compared to us- this picture shows less than half the tree and we climbed all the way to the top.

• Enjoy Traditional Costa Rican Cuisine at Sabor Tico. Great food and even better prices.

Fajitas on Left // Arroz de la Casa on Right

• Stay at Cabañas Bosques de Paz. This family run property is just up the hill from town over looking the city of Montverde. Sophia and her father who run it are the very best, so sweet and helpful. They serve a full breakfast in the morning and often have animals joining at breakfast. Major plus- it’s walking distance to the Ficus Tree. The rooms have floor to ceiling glass windows so you feel right in the jungle and it’s less than $100/night.

Photo above from booking.com where we booked most of our accommodations for this trip.

Day 3:

• Drive to Jaco Beach. 2.5-3 hours of mostly dirt roads until you finally reach the one lane highway 34.
• Attempt to stop at Playa Blanca along the way. This beach is supposedly the best in the area, but has very limited parking that fills up quick on weekends. We couldn’t get a spot because it was noon on Saturday. This blog post has a great description of how to get there and it’s on the way to Jaco.
• Surf Lessons in Jaco. Jaco is a great place for beginners because the waves are small. We booked lessons at our accommodation- Beach Break Resort. It was a 2 hour lesson which was a nice intro to surfing, but they babied us and for that reason I wouldn’t recommend. There’s a great sushi/poke spot called Ohana in town and all the staff surfs- if we had another day I would’ve scheduled a lesson with them. So swing by and let them know the girl who doesn’t eat avocado sent you.

• Check out the local surf competitions. A couple days a week at 5 pm Playa Hermosa (the beach just south of Jaco with much bigger waves) host a competition. Ask your hotel what days it’s happening. We were there on a Saturday and it was.
• Beachside cocktails and enjoy the west coast sunset. There are plenty of beachfront hotels along Jaco Beach. We stayed at Beach Break Resort which had a nice bar/pool area right on the beach for $100/night. It was also walking distance to downtown.

• Dinner and night life. The main strip in Jaco, Av. Pastor Diaz, has tons of restaurants and bars with live music. We were filled up of arroz con pollo by the time we arrived in Jaco. I recommend Ohana for sushi. They have a great chef from Sweden who really cares about the quality of fish and keeps the menu fresh. Ohana also has excellent drinks and was a great place to start the night. The staff recommended The Green Room for live music. If you want Italian go to Amancios- it’s run by true Italians and everything is delicious. Complimentary limoncello is served at the end of your meal in true Italian fashion.

Day 4:

• Offshore Adventure with Jaco Watersports. We booked an all day trip which included offshore fishing all morning, scuba diving/snorkeling and lunch and relaxing on a private island only accessible by boats. It was a beautiful day and we saw tons of dolphin come right up to the boat. We got incredibly unlucky and caught no fish after over 4 hours of trolling. We chased tuna and were near a bunch of other boats also coming up empty so it was just one of those bad days for fish. Drinking beers on a boat watching dolphins and diving in gorgeous weather was still a perfect way to spend the day.

• Other option for day 4 would be to book a tour to Manuel Antonio National Park. The park is a protected coastal rainforest with abundant animals and beautiful beaches. Tours from Jaco include the approximately hour long ride to and from. Some guys we met out had done this and highly recommended it.

Day 5:

• Drive back to San Jose Airport and fly out. The nice thing about ending in Jaco is that it’s only 1 hour 15min from the airport so you can catch a mid morning flight out no problem.

Checkout the full trip video to see more of our adventures: Pura Vida 2018 – Video

Important things to know about Costa Rica:

1. 3rd party liability insurance is required for rental cars. Avis charged $25/day additional for this which we didn’t know about until arriving at the counter. It is not mentioned anywhere when booking. You can get this through some credit cards in advance and then they charge a reduced rate of $19/day.
2. The roads may look like highways on maps, but they are almost all winding dirt roads with huge pot holes so make sure you account for that if you need to be somewhere at a certain time.
3. Everywhere accepts USD as currency as well as colones. Bring cash and don’t worry about going to a currency conversion place.
4. There are toll roads to and from Jaco, but the frequency and cost is minimal and does not warrant purchasing the fast past the rental car companies will offer. USD is accepted at tolls as well.

Happy Travels! Pura Vida!