Costa Rica
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- Last Updated: Friday, 28 October 2022 06:02
- Published: Thursday, 27 October 2022 22:46
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Costa Rica
Costa Rica is a beautiful small country in central America. You can drive thru the whole country, north to south or east to west in 6 hours or less. San Jose is the capital. It's economy is primarily driven by tourism. It's visited by millions of American tourists every year. Irrespective of Costa Rica being a poor country, it's expensive. The cost for a tourist is on par with what you would pay in USA for travel. Food, lodging, car rental, activities cost even more than what they cost in USA. Activities by far are the most expensive and may easily be 2 times of what they cost in USA. One week is good enough time to see most of the top attractions in Costa Rica. The weather is good all year round, except for rain during May thru November (if that bothers you). It never too cold or too hot as it's surrounded by sea on both sides. USD is accepted everywhere in Costa Rica, so don't bother with exchanging your USD for local currency (colon). Use a credit card to pay for everything. If you have a credit card, that has no foreign transaction fee, that's great. Even if you don't, you will end up paying 3% transaction fee which is still cheaper than converting USD for colon (as even local banks charge you more than 3% for currency conversion).
This website has a lot of useful info for visiting Costa Rica: https://mytanfeet.com/. It's a blog site started by some Tour Guide person, but it's amazing in the sheer volume of material it has, and the painstaking details that this person has put in. I relied almost exclusively on this site to plan my trip.
Flying to Costa Rica:
I've found tickets to be expensive to fly from USA to Costa Rica. Fortunately, Southwest flies to one of the smaller airports in Costa Rica, LIR in Liberia. The biggest airport is in the capital city of San Jose (SJO). My avise would be to fly to LIR unless you can get cheaper ticket to SJO. It doesn't matter which airport you fly to, since the country is small, you can drive to anywhere. Roundtrip to LIR from any US city should cost $300 or so during sale or off season time.
Driving:
It's a very safe country to visit, and very safe country to drive. Road signs, driving on left side, etc is same as in USA. There are few rugged roads (especially the ones which are to natural places), for which you might want to rent a 4X4 car (i.e a car which has all wheel drive). We rented a regular 2 wheel drive, and had no problem going anywhere. However, I've heard people getting stuck on these rugged roads, during rainy seasons, as the car is not able to pull itself out by just 2 wheels moving. If you are driving during dry season or don't plan to drive on some o these adventurous roads, you will be fine with a 2 wheel drive. Even if you drive on some of these dangerous roads, there will be signs alerting you that you should be on a 4X4 to get on these roads. 90% of the roads are fine to drive with a 4X2. I would definitely advise to rent a car, as that's the best and the cheapest way to see the country. Go with US based rental car companies as Enterprise, Hertz etc. The local car rental companies, though cheaper may end up being more expensive as they will charge you extra for every minor upgrade or every little thing they see on the car, when you return it. Be ready to pay $500 for a week's rental.
Lodging:
I booked hotels thru expedia.com. You can find hotels, as well as individuals renting their houses on expedia.com.
Attractions: