National parks
Costa Rica protects a large share of its territory, and those parks are why many people come. Most charge admission, several require booking days ahead, and some require a guide.
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Where to find it · 10 areas
Bagaces
Guanacaste's middle town: it sits on the Interamericana between Cañas and Liberia, and most people drive straight past without knowing the county holds three big things. To the north, the Llanos de Cortés waterfall and its turquoise pools. Higher up, Miravalles volcano and the geothermal field that heats its waters. And to the south, dropping toward the Tempisque river, Palo Verde National Park: the wetlands where thousands of water birds gather in the dry season. Bagaces is dry heat, flatland and cattle country.
2 days PuntarenasBahía Drake
A hamlet on the northern coast of the Osa Peninsula, reached by boat up the Sierpe river or by small plane. It's one of the entrances to Corcovado National Park, and outside the village there's no paved road and not much phone signal. You come for the forest and the sea, not for comfort.
3 days LimónCahuita
A small, slow Caribbean town right beside Cahuita National Park. The park trail follows the coast between forest and beach, and off the point there's a coral reef you can snorkel. It's the quiet neighbour to Puerto Viejo, half an hour north.
2 days AlajuelaLa Fortuna
The town at the foot of Arenal volcano, with the cone in view from almost any corner when the sky clears. Around it are hot springs, a waterfall, hanging bridges and Lake Arenal. It's one of the most tourism-ready places in the country, and you can tell.
3 days PuntarenasManuel Antonio
The country's most visited national park, on a headland where the rainforest runs down to the beach. Monkeys, sloths and raccoons cross the trails, and the road up from Quepos opens onto viewpoints over the Pacific. The park is small — a morning is enough.
2 days PuntarenasPuerto Jiménez
The largest town on the Osa Peninsula and the overland base for entering Corcovado National Park. It sits on the Golfo Dulce, calm water on one side and rainforest on the other, and scarlet macaws fly over the main street.
3 days PuntarenasQuepos
Fishing port that serves as the gateway to Manuel Antonio National Park.
3 days AlajuelaRío Celeste
The sky-blue river inside Tenorio Volcano National Park: the colour comes from suspended mineral particles that scatter the light, right where two streams meet. You reach it through Bijagua, a dairy-and-mountain town in northern Alajuela. The trail is muddy and climbs — not a flip-flops walk.
1 day LimónTortuguero
A village with no road, wedged between the canals and the Caribbean sea: you arrive by boat or small plane. It's one of the main green turtle nesting sites in the Caribbean, and nesting is watched at night with a guide, roughly July to October. The rest of the year the canals are explored by boat or kayak.
2 days PuntarenasUvita
The gateway to Marino Ballena National Park, where a sandbar traces a whale's tail you can see whole at low tide. Humpback whales pass offshore — the southern ones roughly July to October, the northern ones in the dry months. The town sits on the coastal highway, between the mountains and the sea.
3 days