Planning for Pura Vida in Costa Rica
- chebelladonna
- Jan 8, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 1
I recently visited Costa Rica for the first time. I've always heard how much people love Costa Rica, while quickly citing the catch phrase 'pura vida'. And whenever I look up best places to travel or retire, Costa Rica is often highlighted on the short list.
With that said, I have to admit that when I have researched taking a holiday in Costa Rica over the years, it wasn't obvious what the nitty gritty of that holiday would look like. Normally, one of my superpowers is that I have a crack shot at researching a location and being able to design an amazing independent trip. But I struggled to create an itinerary in Costa Rica.
This year an opportunity arose to spend some time in Costa Rica with my oldest kiddo who is travelling around on a gap year. There was no pressure to come up with a big plan, but rather we would stay in one of the small highland towns on the outskirts of San Jose, with some day trip mini-adventures.
I had a lovely time. First and foremost, I was able to hang out with my kiddo. People were super friendly and kind. The energy is calm and relaxed. Many people actually say 'pura vida' when passing in the street or to finalize a transaction, which is lovely. The weather was ideal. It's humid, but not too hot, which my skin adores. Access to fresh produce was amazing. Overall, the food was tasty and not overly processed. The water was potable which is awesome. And there are tons of brilliantly coloured flowers and birds. It's all good.
I realize however that my intuition wasn't wrong in my hesitation to plan an independent trip to Costa Rica. It can be an intimidating place to wrap your head around if you have never been. Let me explain why.
1) San Jose, the capital city, isn't the main event. Often when you travel to a new country the capital city is the flagship location for the country that you fly into and explore as a base before heading out to have other adventures. While in Costa Rica, I felt a local trepidation about San Jose. Several people recommended either that we don't go, or that we were very cautious, or at least we don't go at night. There are a number of smaller towns on the edge of the city that appear to be more popular places to stay which is what we did. I'm not proclaiming if San Jose is safe or not, and I'm sure there are lovely things to do, but rather it's not the beating heart of Costa Rica, the way the capital city tends to be in many places. As such there isn't a big name that's easy to grab onto. It's not obvious where to start.
We happened to stay in Ciudad Colon, but there are other towns such as Atenas, Santa Ana and I'm sure many others. Within these small towns you can walk everywhere to meet your daily needs. It reminds me of how I live at home.
2) From what I can see there are a few themes with respect to travelling in Costa Rica. People either travel to, or a combination of, (depending on how much time one has) the Pacific Coast (where you can also fly into Liberia), the Caribbean Coast and the Highlands (both of which require travellers to fly to San Jose).
As for things to do there are a plethora - beaches, hikes, waterfalls, volcanos, adventure touring including activities like zip-lining and mountain biking, coffee and chocolate tours, and visiting animal rehabilitation centres.
But you have to get there. There is no rail. And there isn't, at least as far I have been able to figure out, an easy to navigate bus network. There are buses, but I couldn't find a network of easily accessible intercity travel. Everything I tried lead to a dead end, but I have heard other people say they managed to find smaller van type buses to take them around the country. I had initially booked a couple of nights on the Pacific Coast but I couldn't organize transportation to take us there. And I didn't want to rent a car. In the end we cancelled and decided to remain in the highlands. We effectively hired taxis to take us on day trips. But there was a limit to how far we could reasonably travel.
3) Driving is complicated. If you do decide to drive, be cautious. The roads are twisty, mountainous and somewhat haphazard. Basically, you are either driving up or down, and always turning. The roads aren't in great shape. There are a lot of potholes, some of them enormous. Towns have a lot of one-way streets. Addresses and street names are kind of a vague concept. Things are easier today with Google maps but it's still not intuitive. The other piece to remember is that the sun sets around 6pm. And then it's dark, really dark. Streets, especially outside of town, are not well lit. It makes navigating safely in a new place all the more challenging.
One day we went on a coffee tour and met a couple from Canada. We asked how their trip was going. The wife looked at us, letting out a huge sigh, and said, that everything they had seen was amazing, but surmised that the driving had been atrocious. It was their last day. They had booked a hotel in San Jose, for 10 days, and rented a car, driving themselves all over. It had taken its toll. While they enjoyed their trip, I could tell it hadn't been relaxing.
Two other points to note:
4) Costa Rica isn't a budget destination. Within a couple of days I noted how expensive food is. It's on par with Canada or higher, which is saying something. As I understand rental cars and accommodations are also expensive. Just don't come to Costa Rica with the expectation that it's a budget holiday. It is not.
5) The other piece to be mindful of is the ability to communicate. While a lot of people speak at least some English, there is an expectation to be able to communicate in Spanish. Know your limits.
This is all to say that travel to Costa Rica (and anywhere really) requires you to think about what you want (and need) ahead of time in order to get the most out of your trip. If you are used to, and like, planning resort trips, to Mexico and the Caribbean, and you want to try Costa Rica, then you probably want to fly to Liberia and book a resort where you can be picked up at the airport, and arrange day trips from your hotel.
If you want to travel around the Highlands and the Pacific Coast then I think you need to ask yourself some questions. Are you comfortable driving in foreign locations with less than ideal road conditions? And if you are, make sure you confirm that you can rent an automatic transmission if you need one. Most of the cars I was in were manual transmission. Do you want to be able to move around the country and visit a number of locations during your stay? Or are you content to hang out in one location with a few surrounding day trips? Can you speak Spanish?
If you aren't confident, or don't want to shoulder the responsibility of driving, and want to travel quite broadly around the country, this could be a good place to hire a tour company to take care of the details. They will know where they are going, what's in season and where the most beautiful locations are, leaving you to just enjoy it.
As for me, I could feel myself slow down as the days wore on. We went on our mini-adventures, out for a couple of nice meals, cooked, relaxed, read and went for walks. Different trips have different mandates. This wasn't a trip of trying to do all the things.
For me, the most important part was spending time together, and soaking up some vitamin D before returning home to the winter. The town we stayed in had a lovely pace. In the evenings, people congregated in the square. They visited, strolled and played volleyball. The children played outside seemingly independently from parents, and couples kanoodled. There is an early evening buzz of life, which I adore. Birds sang loudly in the trees. The weather was perfect and the sky a brilliant celeste blue. Gracias Costa Rica!
