Costa Rica travel planning
How to plan a round trip through Costa Rica
The most obvious thing to do would be to book a fully organized trip, but that isn’t in Charlie’s nature. She loves to plan her trips entirely on her own and decide what she wants to do when. She had booked her Yoga Teacher Training in Uvita which would last 2.5 weeks, everything around that was entirely optional and she had in total 6 weeks in Costa Rica.
What to see and do
The first step in her travel planning was to decide where else she wanted to go and what she wanted to see. She read through several blogs and tourism articles about Costa Rica and marked all those spots that seemed interesting on her Google Maps. Once that was done, she looked at this map and identified the spot where most of the markers were. Already at this stage, there were some obvious destinations in Costa Rica: Monteverde, La Fortuna, and at least one National Park.
How to get around in Costa Rica
In the next step, Charlie researched how she could get to the places she had marked on the map, where the nearest town was for accommodation and public transport connections, and how she could get there. For this step, Rome2Rio is a good website. It isn’t always 100% accurate, but you can find out about the different public transport providers and get an idea of how and where to catch a bus or train as well as the related cost. An overview of the transport options helped Charlie to decide where she wanted to go and how much time to plan for each destination within Costa Rica.
Please note that the walk by foot as shown in Google Maps isn’t always accurate. It is always best to confirm your route with your host or a tourist information before you start walking anywhere.
Charlie came up with the following route for her round trip in Costa Rica.
- Arrival day: Arrival at San José Airport and stay at a nearby B&B
- Day 1: Bus Transmonteverde from Alajuela (near the airport) to Monteverde
- Day 2: Monteverde Cloud Forest
- Day 3: Travel to La Fortuna Jeep Boat Jeep (tourist shuttle)
- Day 4: Guided tour in La Fortuna and surroundings
- Day 5: Shuttle transfer to Tamarindo by Interbus
- Day 6: Stay in Tamarindo
- Day 7: Shuttle transfer to Santa Teresa by Tropical Tours Shuttle
- Day 8 & 9: Stay in Santa Teresa (Surfing)
- Day 10: Shuttle and water taxi to Jacó by Zuma Tours
- Day 11: Stay in Jacó
- Day 12: Travel to Uvita with public transport bus by Tracopa
- Day 13-29: Yoga Teacher Training in Uvita
- Day 30: Travel to Golfito with public transport bus by Tracopa
- Day 31-32: Stay in Golfito
- Day 33: Travel to Pavones (Shuttle organized by surf retreat)
- Day 34 -39: Surf Retreat in Pavones
- Day 40: Return to San José by public transport bus by Tracopa (alternative: flight from Golfito to San José by Sansa Airlines)
