Where to stay in Costa Rica
A hotel, a row of cabinas and a whole rented house are not the same decision, and not the same people go looking for them. This is the door marked by kind of roof: come in through the way you want to sleep, come out in the places that have it.
Glamping
Sleeping under canvas or inside a dome, but with a real bed, a bathroom and electricity. It is camping without pitching anything, and it is usually set where camping would be worth it: facing the sea, inside the forest, looking at the volcano.
1 placeBed & breakfasts
A house with a handful of rooms where the owner lives on site and makes breakfast. You are sleeping in someone's home, and that is the point: what you take away is the conversation over breakfast.
Cabinas
The Costa Rican word for simple, cheap lodging: a row of rooms with a private bathroom, usually a fan and a fridge, run by a family. It is not a mountain cabin — it is what you find a block from the beach.
Cabins
A standalone little house, usually wooden and usually among trees or up in the hills: room for a whole family, with a porch and often a kitchen. You rent the whole thing, not a room in it.
Hostels
Rooms sold by the bed, a shared kitchen and people to talk to. Many also keep a private room or two, cheaper than a hotel on the same street.
Hotels
The closest thing to what you picture: a front desk, numbered rooms and someone on duty. In Costa Rica most of them are small and family-owned, even though the sign says the same word a chain would use.
Vacation homes
A whole house for a group travelling together: kitchen, living room, several bedrooms and the door shut behind you. It is what you look for when there are six or eight of you and booking six hotel rooms makes no sense.