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I personally never been in Costa Rica but once when airplane landed to drop off some passengers on my way to Panama. So of you that travel very often to Costa Rica what beach you like the most in Costa Rica?
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We’ve been to Costa Rica and loved it! It’s a very different vacation experience from places like Cuba or Mexico unless you’re the type of person who parks their butt in the sand at the resort and never does anything else. Costa Rica is prime for eco tourism! So much to see, do & explore in the way of wildlife, volcanoes, rainforests, etc.Hard for me to say which beach is best. We stayed in Papagayo Bay for our first trip at the Allegro resort. The beach wasn’t spectacular but it was so interesting because it was black sand – and very, very hot!
Langosta Beach is probably my favourite so far for the Pacific Coast and the Jaco area is a close second but we really liked the Caribbean side around Limon
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Thank you YVRck I never been in Costa Rica but I was a few times in Panama .. maybe more than a few times ![]("http://images.proboards.com/v5/smiley/smiley.png") Usually in Panama they have nicer beaches in Bocas del Toro area as sea is Caribbean so I was wandering id its the same case with Costa Rica? Sure I know that traveling to Costa Rica is more than a beach and Costa Rica is on my top list to visit. I have a few friends who moved and live in Costa Rica and they say they love it there. Thank you for your answer YVRck |
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I can’t speak for the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, as it seems that for some reason is less touristy (and maybe not as safe?) as the Pacific side.I agree that it’s a totally different vacation than the typical resort location. We went two years ago, rented a 4×4 at Liberia airport and drove to different area’s. First we went to Arenal, stayed there for 2 nights, then we drove to Monteverde, stayed there for 2 nights and our last 6 nights in Costa Rica were spent in Brasilito (Guanacaste) for some beach time. The beaches vary from dark sand to pretty light coloured sand (Playa Flamingo and Playa Grande) to crushed shells! (Conchal Beach)
The one thing I found amazing was the fact that there’s hardly anybody on the beach. At Playa Grande (just north of Tamarindo) we more or less had the whole beach to ourselves and it’s huge. There are no beach vendors or chair/umbrella rentals, unless you go to one of the towns on the coast, like Tamarindo or Playa del Coco.
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Hey traveljunky thank you for your help. I understand that it is not same vacation as going to all inclusive resort and staying on the beach all the time so that is one of the reasons I would like to to and visit as well plus I do have some friends ex-pats who live in Costa Rica now. I think that best option is like you did rent a car and go around and see places. How was driving and road? They have good road signs and they drive safe or they drive very crazy. I was driving in Panama and in the city most drive crazy and you have to fight with others when you want to make turn on the intersection if there is no street lights but as soon as we went out of the Panama City driving was pleasure.
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the driving was fine, we didn’t encounter many crazy drivers. The roads….now that is something different! For the most part they’re good, especially in the Guanacaste area. Driving from Liberia to Arenal was pretty smooth too. Driving from Arenal to Monteverde was very challenging! The roads are made of dirt and broken up rocks, with quite a few potholes and the car was rattling and shaking. Sometimes ww weren’t even sure if we were on an actual road or not, but we had a GPS with us. The scenery was beautiful though! I believe there are some video’s on Youtube about this route.When we drove from Playa Flamingo to the Playa del Coco area, we had to cross a small shallow river. I was kind of nervous about it, but it was the dry season and we had not problems crossing it. |
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Excellent experience I must say traveljunky and exciting. Can you tell me did you have any wild animals jumping on your car while you drive. I mean such as monkeys etc You must have seen tons of different spices of birds as I believe that Panama and Costa Rica have the biggest number of different spices of the birds.
Thanks
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no, no wild animals on our car, but we’ve seen a few monkeys. One of them was crossing the road over a powerline, we just saw him at the very last minute. On our way to Arenal, we had to stop because there were a lot of coatimundi’s on the road. (we actually had to Google them, we had no idea at the time what kind of animals they were). We did see a variety of birds, but no tukans, or maybe we just looked in the wrong places to find one. |
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Thank you traveljunky for all great info you gave about Costa Rica and your trip. I am sure Costa Rica is on my list to visit as I never been there.
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