Yes, we are a very small country, roughly the size of West Virginia or Denmark. However, different from other Central American countries, most of Costa Rica is “visitable” and the landscape varies a lot: rainforest, dry forest, cloudforest, white sand beach, black sand beach, surf beach, active volcanoes, inactive volcanoes, waterfalls, indigenous towns, national parks, Caribbean Coast, Pacific Coast, etc etc etc. This gives you a very wide range of options to choose from and, we get it, you will most likely not have enough time to do it all.

We already established that Costa Rica is a small country, and this might make you think that it’s easy to discover it all in a few short days…but in real life it’s much harder than you think, and there’s a simple answer to that: we like to call it “welcome to the jungle!”. Our topography varies a lot and this means that from getting to point A to point B it’s usually not a straight path but rather a very uphill, downhill, curvy, bumpy ride! Which is why being smart about your itinerary is super important to make sure you’re squeezing out the most out of your vacation time…and it’s really hard to do that if you’re not a local, we know (especially because we don’t really have addresses and also traffic jams can get intense in certain routes)!

We see it over and over again: travelers in Costa Rica come to do the exact same route and then go on suggesting it to others. You know the one: Jacó, Manuel Antonio, La Fortuna, Monteverde and Tamarindo. However, there’s a whole ‘nother country out there waiting to be explored, but A) many don’t know about it, and B) there’s not much reliable information out there. Sticking to the traditional first-timer’s Costa Rica itinerary is a safe bet given that so many travelers have done it, but there’s also the risk that maybe those destinations might not be the ideal ones for you and your travel preferences.