Wanderlines
The crater of the Poás volcano seen from above, wrapped in mist and steam
Costa Rica · Central Valley · 1,170 m

San José

The capital most travellers rush through on the way to the beach is a coffee town at 1,170 metres, ringed by volcanoes you can stand on the rim of before lunch, with a food and bar scene that has grown up in the last ten years and quetzals two hours down the road.

Jump to highlightsWildlife
Photo: Pau Delgado via Pexels
Overview

Chepe, the city coffee built

San José, Chepe to its people, sits in the Central Valley at 1,170 metres, where the weather is spring all year and the coffee that paid for the Teatro Nacional still grows on the slopes above the suburbs. It is not a beautiful city and does not pretend to be: the centre is a working grid of pedestrian streets, a 1880s market, three good museums and some elegant leftovers of the coffee boom in Barrio Amón, and after dark it empties. The life has moved east to Barrio Escalante, a residential quarter turned into the best eating and drinking street in Central America, and to the villages and volcanoes within an hour or two of the ring road.

Poás, with its acid crater lake, and Irazú, the highest volcano in the country, are morning trips. Cartago's basilica and the Orosi valley are an afternoon. The cloud forest at San Gerardo de Dota, two hours south, is one of the most reliable places in the world to see a resplendent quetzal. The coffee farms run tours, the rescue centres have the sloths and toucans the city lacks, and the beach, in either direction, is three hours away.

Two days covers the centre, Escalante and a volcano. Three adds Cartago and Orosi or the coffee country. Four adds a dawn with the quetzals, which is the best reason to stay.

A colourful street in San José, Costa Rica
The centreAvenida Central, the Teatro Nacional, the Gold and Jade museums, the Mercado Central, the Museo Nacional. Daytime territory.
The barriosAmón's coffee mansions, Escalante's restaurants and bars, La California's clubs, San Pedro's student street, La Sabana's park.
North and eastPoás and La Paz, the coffee farms of Alajuela and Heredia, Barva's cloud forest, Irazú and Cartago, the Orosi valley and Tapantí.
South and westEscazú and Santa Ana's hills, Pico Blanco, and the Cerro de la Muerte road to San Gerardo de Dota and the quetzals.
Highlights

What to see first

Nine places. Book Poás on the SINAC website before you arrive; the rest is a taxi app and an early alarm.

The flag of Costa Rica flying against a blue sky
Centre · Tours on the hour

Teatro Nacional

Opened in 1897 and paid for by a tax on coffee exports, the national theatre is the city's one grand building: marble, gilt, a ceiling painting of coffee and banana harvests that once appeared on the five-colón note, and a programme of concerts and ballet. Guided tours run hourly from nine to four for about 3,500 colones; Alma de Café in the foyer is the best coffee house in the centre. The Plaza de la Cultura outside is where the pigeons and the Gold Museum are.

Teatro Nacional in detail →
Painted buildings along an urban street in San José
Centre · Daily

The Gold Museum and the Jade Museum

Underneath the Plaza de la Cultura the Central Bank's Museo del Oro Precolombino holds more than 1,600 gold pieces, frogs, eagles and shamans from the pre-Columbian chiefdoms, with a coin museum attached, open from a quarter past nine to half past four. Five blocks east on the Plaza de la Democracia the Jade Museum's five floors hold the largest collection of American jade anywhere, eight to five daily. US$15 to US$16 each for foreigners; do the gold first and the jade after lunch.

The museums in detail →
Two cups of coffee and a pastry on a tray
Centre · Mon–Sat, closed Sunday

Mercado Central

Trading since 1880, a covered maze of herb stalls, saddlers, coffee roasters and lunch counters, best from eight to ten in the morning and cash only. Soda Tala has served the Talapinto, an omelette with rice and beans and sausage in a banana leaf, for a century at communal benches; the marisquerías do ceviche and the caldosa, ceviche poured into a bag of crisps; La Sorbetera de Lolo Mora has made the same cinnamon ice cream since 1901. Keep your phone in your pocket and your bag in front.

Mercado Central in detail →
People sitting at a bar counter
Amón and Escalante · Walk and eat

Barrio Amón and Barrio Escalante

Amón, north of the centre, is where the coffee barons built their mansions around 1900: a walk along Avenidas 9 and 11 between Calles 3 and 7 passes the Casa Verde, the Castillo del Moro and the houses that now hold boutique hotels and Silvestre, the city's best restaurant. Escalante, east of the centre around Calle 33, is the modern city: a couple of dozen restaurants, brewpubs, coffee roasters and cocktail bars in converted houses, walkable after dark and the one neighbourhood where San José stays out.

The steaming crater of Poás volcano from the air
1–1.5 h · Online booking only

Poás volcano

The most visited volcano in the country, 2,700 metres up through coffee and strawberry farms, with a crater 1.5 kilometres across and 300 metres deep holding a steaming turquoise acid lake. Entry is by timed 20-minute slot booked on the SINAC site, US$15, no tickets at the gate; since the activity of 2026 the daily number is capped at about a thousand, the crater lookout takes 56 people at a time and helmets are mandatory, while the Botos lagoon trail stays closed. Be on the first slot at eight; cloud fills the crater by ten most days.

Poás in detail →
The interior of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels in Cartago with worshippers
1.5–2 h · Cartago

Irazú volcano and the Cartago basilica

Irazú, 3,432 metres and the highest volcano in Costa Rica, is a flat, cold, windy walk round the rims of a crater a kilometre wide and the Diego de la Haya crater with its intermittent green lake, open eight to four with last entry at two, US$15 by card at the gate; on a rare clear morning both oceans show. On the way back, Cartago, the old capital, has the Byzantine-style basilica of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, home of the black Virgin La Negrita to whom two million people walk every August, and the earthquake-ruined shell of Santiago Apóstol on the square.

Irazú & Cartago in detail →
A waterfall in the jungle surrounded by trees
1.5 h · Vara Blanca · US$51–56

La Paz Waterfall Gardens

A private park on the far side of Poás: five waterfalls on 3.5 kilometres of trails, the hummingbird garden where 26 species have been recorded at the feeders, an aviary of toucans, sloth and frog houses, a butterfly dome and a rescue of jungle cats, open eight to five. Expensive by local standards and built for the tour buses, but the hummingbirds at opening and the walk down to La Paz falls make it the Central Valley's best wildlife morning, and it pairs with Poás and a coffee farm on the same road.

La Paz in detail →
A young man picking red coffee cherries into a basket on a farm
30 min to 1 h · November to February harvest

The coffee farms

The valley's slopes between 1,200 and 1,700 metres grow the arabica that made the country, and three estates on the roads north run tours: Doka in Sabanilla de Alajuela on the Poás road, a working wet mill with a two-hour tour from about US$16 to US$35; Café Britt at Barva in Heredia, the theatrical classic; and Hacienda Alsacia, Starbucks's only farm open to the public, next door to Doka. Go during the November to February picking season, taste, and buy the beans you cannot get at home.

Close-up of a keel-billed toucan in Costa Rica
25–45 min · Book ahead

Toucan Rescue Ranch and Rescate Wildlife

The city has no sloths of its own, so the rescue centres are where the valley's wildlife is. Toucan Rescue Ranch at San Isidro de Heredia takes bookings for a two-hour sanctuary tour, US$37, or a sloth-and-coffee tour, closed Mondays and strictly no touching. Rescate Wildlife Rescue Center, the old Zoo Ave at La Garita near the airport, is a big walk-through sanctuary of macaws, toucans, sloths, monkeys and cats, US$30 at the gate, nine to five. Details in the wildlife section.

Also worth your time

Centre · Closed Monday

Museo Nacional

Plaza de la Democracia · Tue–Sat 8.30–4.30, Sun 9–4.30

The country's history in the Bellavista barracks, still pocked with bullets from the 1948 civil war that ended with the abolition of the army, entered through a butterfly garden. Pre-Columbian stone spheres, colonial rooms and the story of a nation without soldiers.

West · Free

Parque La Sabana and the Museo de Arte Costarricense

Old airport terminal · Tue–Sun 9–4

The city's big park on the site of the old airport, with a lake, running tracks and the national stadium; the art museum in the 1940 terminal is free and its Salón Dorado's bas-relief mural of Costa Rican history is the best room in the city. Soda Tapia across the road for lunch.

Cartago · Half a day

The Orosi valley and Lankester Gardens

Beyond Cartago · gardens 8.30–4.30, about US$10

The University's Lankester garden has one of the great orchid collections; twenty minutes on, the Orosi loop takes in the 1743 colonial church, the ruins of Ujarrás, the Cachí dam, a lookout over the whole green valley and hot springs for the end of the day.

West · Evenings

Escazú

15 minutes west

The affluent hill suburb with the malls, the expat restaurants and the Jazz Café's nightly bands, and above it the village of San Antonio de Escazú where the Pico Blanco trail starts. A dinner-and-music base rather than a sight.

Hikes & nature

Crater rims, cloud forest and the wettest park in the country

The Central Valley's walking is short and high: crater rims at 2,700 and 3,400 metres, cloud-forest loops on Barva and in the Dota valley, and rainforest trails in Tapantí, where seven metres of rain fall a year. Chirripó, the country's summit, is a three-day trip from a trailhead four hours south, not a day out.

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Walking season: teal = the dry months with clear volcano mornings; green = the green season, mornings fine and rain from two; grey = September and October, the wettest weeks, when the craters are in cloud and the trails are streams.

A waterfall pouring into a pool in dense forest
Easy to moderate

Volcán Barva, Braulio Carrillo

The quiet volcano above Heredia: a cloud forest of oaks hung with moss at 2,900 metres with crater lakes instead of craters. From the Barva ranger post short trails lead to Laguna Barva in an hour and a half return, to Laguna Copey and Cacho de Venado, and to a lookout over Vara Blanca, with quetzals possible in the fruiting season and almost nobody about. US$12 to US$14 for foreigners, open eight to half past three. The approach road from Sacramento is rough and has needed a four-kilometre walk from the village when works close it.

Full route guide →
3–6 kmof trails
2–4 hwalking
250–300 mof ascent

Cold and wet at any season; bring a shell and a fleece. A four-wheel drive, or a taxi to Sacramento and legs, is the way up. Go on a weekday morning.

A resplendent quetzal flying into a hollow in a tree
Easy · Pre-dawn

Los Quetzales and the Dota valley

Two hours south over the Cerro de la Muerte, San Gerardo de Dota is a valley of trout streams and oak forest at 2,200 metres where the resplendent quetzal nests from February to April and is seen reliably until July, and often all year. The national park's own trails are short, one to four kilometres from the ranger station for US$10, booked online; the real birding is along the valley road and the lodge trails at dawn with a local guide who knows that morning's wild avocado tree. Stay a night and be out at half past five.

Full route guide →
1–4 kmpark trails; valley walks longer
2 hfrom San José
Feb–Julquetzal season, peak Mar–Apr

Possible as a long day but far better overnight; guides are US$30 to US$50 a person. Cold at dawn, 5°C; the valley is also the country's best fresh trout.

A waterfall on a turquoise river in a Costa Rican forest
Moderate · Wet

Tapantí and the crater rims

Tapantí, beyond Orosi, is the wettest national park in Costa Rica: the Oropéndola loop of about three kilometres along the river and the harder Árboles Caídos trail of two make a five-kilometre morning in rainforest that drips even in the dry season, with tapir tracks and tarantulas, tickets online through SINAC. The volcano walks are the other end of the scale: Poás is a 600-metre paved path to the crater lookout in your twenty-minute slot and helmet, and Irazú is one or two kilometres of flat gravel round the rims at 3,400 metres in wind and cold, with the Prusia sector's forest trails below for a longer day.

Full route guide →
2–7 kmdepending on the park
1–4 hwalking
Rain gearalways, at Tapantí

Combine Tapantí with Lankester and the Orosi loop, or Irazú's rims with the Prusia forest and Cartago. Both volcanoes clear before ten and cloud over after; the first slot is the right one.

Half day · Free

Pico Blanco, Cerros de Escazú

From San Antonio de Escazú, 30–45 minutes from the centre

The 2,271-metre peak above the western suburbs: about 2.5 kilometres each way with 450 metres of steep, often muddy climbing from the church in San Antonio to a summit with the whole valley below. The city hike, done early.

Full route guide →
Guided only · Volatile

Volcán Turrialba

2–2.5 h east · reserve on the official platform

Reopened in August 2026 after rain damage, and before that closed for most of a decade of eruptions: a guided seven-kilometre route to the active summit from Monte Calas. Check the status the week you go.

Full route guide →
3 days · Not from the city

Cerro Chirripó

San Gerardo de Rivas, 3.5–5 h south

The 3,821-metre roof of Costa Rica is a two- or three-day trek with permits booked months ahead and a 19-kilometre climb to the Crestones base. A separate trip for January to April, mentioned here so nobody tries it as a day out.

Full route guide →
Scuba

Nothing within three hours, and two reasons to drive

The Central Valley is a long way from any reef. The diving is a separate trip, in one of two directions, and both are worth it.

Pacific south · 3.5–6 h

Isla del Caño

Boats from Uvita, 1.5 h, or Drake Bay, 30 min · December to May calmest

A marine reserve off the Osa peninsula with whitetip reef sharks, turtles, rays and schooling jacks on sites at 20 to 25 metres, occasional mantas and humpbacks on the surface from July to October and again in the northern winter. Uvita is four hours by road; Drake is a flight or a long day.

Pacific north · 3.5–4 h

The Catalina Islands and the Bat Islands

Day boats from Playa del Coco, Flamingo and Tamarindo · November to May

Guanacaste's volcanic islands bring giant Pacific mantas from November to May, at their most reliable from December to February, and the Bat Islands further north have bull sharks from May to October for advanced divers. Liberia is an hour's flight or four by road.

Cocos Island, the hammerhead legend, is a 36-hour crossing by liveaboard and an expedition in its own right. Leave 18 hours between your last dive and the climb back up to the valley or your flight home.
Wildlife

Quetzals at dawn, sloths by appointment, hummingbirds at the feeders

The city itself has little beyond the occasional two-toed sloth in a park tree, but the valley around it has the bird the whole continent wants to see and two rescue centres that do the rest honestly.

Resplendent quetzal

San Gerardo de Dota, 2 h south; sometimes Barva and the Poás road · dawn

A metre of iridescent green tail trailing from a bird the size of a pigeon, the sacred bird of the Maya and Aztecs and the most beautiful in the Americas. The Dota valley's oaks and wild avocados hold dozens of pairs; they nest in tree hollows from February to April, feed within sight of the road until July and are found by guides most of the year. Out at half past five, with binoculars and patience.

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Sloths, toucans and macaws at the rescue centres

Toucan Rescue Ranch, Heredia; Rescate Wildlife, La Garita · all year, book the first

Toucan Rescue Ranch rehabilitates sloths, toucans, owls and otters for release and shows the ones that cannot go back on two-hour tours by reservation, Tuesday to Sunday. Rescate Wildlife at La Garita, near the airport, is the country's biggest sanctuary, a walk-through of scarlet macaws, sloths, monkeys, crocodiles and cats, nine to five daily. Both exist because of the pet trade and the roads, and both are the realistic way to see a sloth in the Central Valley.

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Hummingbirds

La Paz Waterfall Gardens; the Poás road cafés; any garden with feeders · all year

Twenty-six species have been recorded at La Paz's feeders, violet sabrewings and green-crowned brilliants among them, and the cafés along the Poás road hang their own. In the city, the Lankester orchid garden and the Dota valley lodges are the other reliable spots. Sit still for ten minutes and they arrive.

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Toucans, motmots and the cloud forest

Barva, Braulio Carrillo, Orosi and Tapantí · mornings

Emerald toucanets and collared aracaris in the forests of Barva and Orosi, the blue-crowned motmot's pendulum tail in any valley garden, oropendolas, trogons and, in Tapantí, the tracks of tapir and the occasional tayra. The old INBio park has closed and the city zoo in Barrio Amón shut in 2024 to become a botanical park; the forests are where the birds are now.

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A green resplendent quetzal at the entrance to its nest hollow
Dota

Quetzal

Nesting from February to April.

A sloth clinging to a tree trunk
Rescue centres

Sloth

Two-toed and three-toed, by appointment.

Close-up of a keel-billed toucan's head and beak
La Paz

Keel-billed toucan

In the aviary, and wild in the Orosi forests.

Good food

Gallo pinto at dawn, chifrijo at the bar and Escalante after dark

Costa Rican food is honest and cheap: rice and beans in the morning, the casado plate at lunch, Sunday's beef and root stew, and Lizano sauce on all of it. The capital added a serious restaurant scene in the last decade; its brightest star closed this autumn, and the rest is in Barrio Escalante and Barrio Amón.

A bowl of stew served with a tortilla
Eat this

Gallo pinto, casado and olla de carne

Breakfast is gallo pinto, yesterday's rice fried with black beans, coriander and Lizano, with eggs and a tortilla. Lunch is the casado, the "married" plate of rice, beans, fried plantain, salad and a piece of chicken, fish or beef for US$6 to US$10 at any soda, the family lunch counter. Sunday is olla de carne, beef simmered with yuca, plantain, chayote and corn. Tres leches to finish.

Assorted cocktails lined up on a bar at sunset
Eat this

Chifrijo, ceviche and the caldosa

Chifrijo, invented in a Tibás bar in the 1990s, is rice, beans, crisp pork chicharrón and pico de gallo in a bowl with tortilla chips, the thing to order with a beer in any cantina. Ceviche de corvina is lime-cured sea bass; the caldosa, a Mercado Central invention, pours it into a bag of crisps. Christmas tamales come in banana leaves, Imperial and Pilsen are the beers, Cacique is the sugar-cane spirit.

A person holding ripe coffee cherries in cupped hands
Eat this

Coffee, properly

The valley grows some of the best arabica on earth and for a century exported all of it; now the roasters in Escalante and the farm tours pour the Tarrazú and Tres Ríos lots at home. Order a chorreador, coffee dripped through a cloth sock, at the market; a pour-over at Franco or any Escalante roaster; and the Café 7 Provincias at the Teatro Nacional's Alma de Café.

The best tables

Sikwa, the indigenous-ingredient restaurant that reached No. 43 on Latin America's 50 Best in 2025 and was named the best in the country, closed its Los Yoses dining room in October 2026 after chef Pablo Bonilla's departure; the team says it hopes to return. These are the four to book now.

The top table

Silvestre

Barrio Amón, Avenida 11 · Santiago Fernández Benedetto · dinner, book

Modern Costa Rican cooking in a restored 1930s house: tasting menus of six to eight courses built on the country's roots, fish, pejibaye and cacao, with pairings, and à la carte for the less committed. The chef was among the Costa Ricans recognised at the 2025 Best Chef Awards, and this is the city's serious dinner.

US$70–150; US$300 with pairing · $$$$
Market cooking

Al Mercat

Barrio Escalante · José González · lunch Tue–Fri, dinner Thu–Sat

A Cordon Bleu-trained chef cooking whatever the morning's market and his own farm supplied, in a converted house with a garden; mains US$18 to US$30 and the vegetables as good as the meat. The Escalante dinner.

US$35–60 · $$$
Garden room

Restaurante Grano de Oro

Hotel Grano de Oro, off Paseo Colón · lunch and dinner

French-Mediterranean technique and Costa Rican produce in the courtyard of a coffee-era mansion turned hotel; the long-standing special-occasion restaurant, polished and unhurried.

US$40–70 · $$$
Escalante

Kalú Café & Food Shop

Barrio Escalante · Camille Ratton · lunch and dinner

The neighbourhood's trend-setter: a bright room, a short international menu, a food shop and the desserts that made Ratton's name. Lunch here, then the roasters next door.

US$20–40 · $$

Where locals eat

Institution · Since 1893

Soda Tapia

Opposite Parque La Sabana · breakfast to late

The city's oldest soda, casados, chifrijo and gallo pinto at a counter full of families and night-shift workers; the honest Costa Rican plate at any hour.

US$6–12 · $
Mercado Central

Soda Tala, the marisquerías and Lolo Mora

Inside the market · Mon–Sat, cash

Tala's Talapinto in a banana leaf for a few dollars, ceviche and the caldosa at the fish counters, and the 1901 cinnamon ice cream at La Sorbetera de Lolo Mora for dessert. Chorreador coffee at the Café del Mercado.

US$3–8 · $
Brunch and coffee

Franco

Barrio Escalante · mornings

The specialty roaster and brunch room the neighbourhood queues for at weekends; the pour-over flight is the education in Costa Rican coffee you came for.

US$8–18 · $
Saturday market

Feria Verde de Aranjuez

Barrio Aranjuez · Saturday 7am–12.30pm

The organic farmers' market: breakfast stalls, single-estate coffee, chocolate makers, cheeses from the highlands and the city's cooks doing their shopping. The best Saturday morning in San José.

US$5–15 · $
Chifrijo and a beer

The cantinas of La California and Tibás

Barrio La California; Tibás, where chifrijo was born

Any neighbourhood bar serves chifrijo with a cold Imperial; the Tibás cantina credited with inventing it in the 1990s is a pilgrimage for the dedicated, and the bars between the centre and Escalante do it for the rest of us.

US$5–10 · $
Teatro Nacional

Alma de Café

In the theatre foyer · daily

A Viennese-style coffee house under the frescoes, with the Café 7 Provincias blend, cakes and the best people-watching in the centre, no ticket required.

US$5–12 · $
Nightlife

Calle 33, the coffee-baron mansions and a jazz club in the hills

San José's centre goes dark at dusk and its nights happen in the barrios: Escalante's bar street, Amón's old houses turned into clubs, the student bars of San Pedro and the electronic nights on Paseo Colón. Take a ride-hailing car door to door after ten.

Barrio Escalante

Calle 33 and the brewpubs

Around Calle 33 · until 2am

The gastronomic strip is also the bar strip: Costa Rica Beer Factory's hall and Wilk and Lupulus for the country's craft beer, El Cuartel de la Boca del Monte for cocktails and live bands since before the neighbourhood was fashionable, Hoxton Pub for the late dance floor, and a dozen wine bars and cocktail rooms in between. Walkable within itself and the one safe stroll after dark.

Barrio Amón

El Steinvorth, Amón Solar and the Stiefel Pub

North of the centre · evenings

The coffee mansions of 1900 now hold the alternative scene: DJ nights in the old Steinvorth building, live music and performance at Amón Solar, ten microbrews at the Stiefel Pub, and the city's small LGBTQ+ scene at La Avispa and Bochinche. Dinner at Silvestre first.

Students and clubs

Calle de la Amargura, La California and Club Vértigo

San Pedro; between centre and Escalante; Paseo Colón

The university's bar street in San Pedro has the cheapest drinks and the roughest two in the morning; Barrio La California's beer gardens, DJs and live rooms sit between the centre and Escalante; Club Vértigo on Paseo Colón is the electronic club on Fridays and Saturdays, Antik the gay-friendly dance floor in the centre.

Live music

Jazz Café Escazú and El Sótano

Escazú; Barrio Amón

The Jazz Café in Escazú books national and touring bands nightly for a cover of a few thousand colones and a dinner crowd; El Sótano is the jazz basement in Amón. Craft-beer taprooms, Treintaycinco among them, fill the rest of the week.

A row of cocktails on a wooden bar counter
Escalante

Calle 33

Dinner, then next door, then next door again.

Friends sitting at a bar counter in the evening
Amón

The old houses

DJs under the coffee barons' ceilings.

Cocktails on a bar at sunset
Escazú

Jazz with the lights below

Nightly bands in the hills.

Practical notes

Before you go

Getting there

Juan Santamaría airport is 18 kilometres west of the centre at Alajuela, 20 to 45 minutes depending on traffic. The official orange taxis charge US$25 to US$35; ride-hailing apps are cheaper but their pick-ups at the airport are contested, so expect to be asked to walk across the road; the Tuasa public bus to the centre costs about 675 colones and takes half an hour. Allow three hours for international departures and a night in Alajuela for an early flight.

Getting around

Uber and DiDi are how visitors move, cheap and safer than hailing at night. City buses cost a few hundred colones but the routes are a puzzle; the intercity buses to Alajuela and Cartago are useful. For the volcanoes, Dota and the coffee farms a rental car or a driver for the day is simplest; the roads are good, the signage is not, and mandatory liability insurance inflates rental quotes. Book Poás on the SINAC site, Irazú ideally too, and Toucan Rescue Ranch always.

Seasons

  • Dec–Apr: dry season, clear volcano mornings, highest prices from Christmas to Easter.
  • May–Nov: the green season, sunny mornings and rain from two; September and October wettest.
  • Feb–Apr: quetzals nesting at Dota; Nov–Feb: coffee harvest on the farms.
  • The city is 17–27°C all year; the craters are cold and windy at any season.

Money

Colones, with dollars accepted everywhere tourists go and change given in colones; cards are near-universal except in the market and the sodas. Restaurant bills add 13 per cent tax and 10 per cent service by law, so a tip is a round-up, not another ten. Costa Rica is the most expensive country in Central America: budget US$6 to US$10 for a casado, US$15 for a national park, US$80 to US$150 for a mid-range room.

Safety

Petty theft is the risk, not violence. Avoid walking the centre after dark, keep phones and jewellery out of sight on Avenida Central and at the market, and steer clear of the Coca-Cola bus terminal area, the hospital district and the southern suburbs at any hour. Escalante, Amón and Escazú are fine in the evening with a ride between them. Park in guarded lots, leave nothing in cars at trailheads.

Where to stay

Barrio Amón for the coffee-era boutique hotels and a walk to the museums by day; Barrio Escalante for the restaurants and bars at your door; La Sabana and Rohrmoser for parks and business hotels; San Pedro for hostels near the university; Escazú and Santa Ana for malls, chain hotels and the airport road; Alajuela for the night before a flight. The Grano de Oro, off Paseo Colón, is the classic address.

Photography

Photo credits

Photographs on this page are by independent photographers published on Pexels under the free Pexels licence. Click a title to open the original.

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