Costa Rica

One country. Eleven entirely different worlds.

Costa Rica is not one destination. It is a set of climates, coastlines and rhythms that sit surprisingly close together — and the difference between a good journey and an extraordinary one is which of them you combine, and in what order.

Northern PlainsCloud Forest HighlandsNorth PacificNicoya PeninsulaCentral PacificSouth PacificCaribbean Coast

Northern Plains

Arenal

Arenal is not simply a volcano. It is the one place in Costa Rica where a rainforest morning, an afternoon in the cloud line and thermal water after dark all belong to the same day.

Nights 2–4

South Pacific

Osa Peninsula

Osa is the part of the country that never learned to make itself convenient. Rainforest runs to the sand, the ocean is a gulf rather than a coastline, and the day is organised by light instead of by plans.

Nights 3–5

North Pacific

Papagayo

Papagayo is the coast Costa Rica keeps for calm water. Bays face inward, the light is dry and constant, and the ocean behaves — which is exactly why it ends so many journeys.

Nights 3–5

Mist moving through a moss-covered cloud forest canopy

Cloud Forest Highlands

Monteverde

Monteverde is a forest you hear before you see. At this altitude the cloud moves through the trees instead of above them, and everything — sound, temperature, colour — behaves differently from the coast you left this morning.

Nights 2–3

Rainforest wildlife seen from a quiet waterway at dawn

Caribbean Coast

Tortuguero

Tortuguero has canals where other places have roads. You arrive by water, you move by water, and the wildlife comes to you rather than the other way round.

Nights 2–3

Turquoise river water falling through untouched forest

Northern Plains

Río Celeste

The colour of Río Celeste is a chemical accident of volcanic minerals and light. Arrive early enough and you get the rare thing: a famous place with nobody in it.

Nights 1–2

Palm-lined Caribbean shoreline with warm shallow water

Caribbean Coast

South Caribbean

The south Caribbean is a different country with the same passport: Afro-Caribbean, Bribri and Spanish at once, warmer water than the Pacific, and a clock nobody bothers to check.

Nights 3–5

Nicoya Peninsula

Santa Teresa

Santa Teresa is a dirt road along a very good wave, with some of the best cooking in the country hidden behind it. The friction is the filter — and it is why the place still feels like itself.

Nights 3–5

Private villa terrace open to dry forest and ocean

Nicoya Peninsula

Nosara

Nosara built its rules before it built its houses: no beachfront construction, no noise, no shortcuts. The result is a coast that stays quiet even when it is full.

Nights 4–6

Central Pacific

Manuel Antonio

Manuel Antonio is the shortest distance between rainforest and ocean in Costa Rica. That convenience is its gift and its problem: the wildlife is extraordinary, and so is everyone else's interest in it.

Nights 2–4

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