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Help with Costa Rica itinerary?
My best friend and I are going for 5 nights in June. We are flying into San Jose and would like to do 3 days of beach/ nightlife and 2 days of rafting & ziplining/hiking
Trying to book hotels and ground transportation at this time. I have the Fodor's guidebook and it recommends Playa Flamingo on the North Pacific coast as the best beach with Tamarindo as the best nightlife. Then I figured we would head to the Arenal area for the other activities. Thoughts on this itinerary?
And some specific questions - would you rent a car?
Ideally we'd like to stay all 5 nights in one hotel, but would it make more sense to stay three nights in Flamingo and two nights in the Arenal area?
Any hotel recs in either of these areas? I wasn't able to find too many options in Flamingo and we want to stay right on the beach for less than $200/ night.
TIA for any help!
Re: Help with Costa Rica itinerary?
I went to Costa Rica with my friend last year and we spent 4 days on the Nicoya Peninsula in Nosara and 4 days in La Fortuna/Arenal. With the limited amount of time you have, I wouldn't recommend driving all the way from San Jose to Playa Flamingo to Arenal and then back to the airport. The drive from San Jose to Nosara took us at least five hours. Although distances appear short on a map the reality is that because some of the roads are in such terrible conditions it takes much longer than you would anticipate.
Five days might be pushing it, but it would probably be more feasible to visit Arenal and Manuel Antonio as the drive between the two is shorter than the beach you are currently considering.
We were quite happy with our car rental experience; again, although some of the roads are in bad shape we loved having the flexibility of driving wherever we wanted.
I have an entry in my blog on both Nosara and Arenal.
What is your definition of "nightlife"? I was in Tamarindo two years ago (my DH has been 4-5 times) and they mainly just have a lot of (casual) restaurants with bars and some seedy-looking nightclubs. I really liked Tamarindo, but it's more of a surf town than anything. Although I was there with my husband, so perhaps there are more opportunities for going out and meeting people, and I just wasn't looking!
On our trip, we stayed in Tamarindo the entire time (since it was mainly a surf trip for DH and his buddy) and did two day trips for ziplining and rafting. Ziplining was relatively close to Playa Flamingo (which looked like a pretty nice town - definitely more upscale than any other places we saw in the area) and maybe 45 min from Tamarindo. For rafting, it was a two hour drive each way, so if you're planning on more than one day of rafting, that would get tiring. Honestly, I would probably stay at least part of the time in Arenal, given the choice, but you could certainly stay at one hotel on the coast the entire time if you didn't mind taking long day trips for your activities.
I would recommend looking into getting a flight from San Jose to Liberia if you're planning to stay in Tamarindo or Playa Flamingo; it would be a very long drive from San Jose. If you are interested in Tamarindo, we stayed at Witches Rock Surf Camp. We thought it was great - very hospitable staff (I ended up needing stitches while I was there and they drove me to and from the clinic), right on the beach, excellent breakfasts - but it's not exactly luxurious, if that's what you're looking for. If you stay in Tamarindo, you would only need a car to get from the airport to Tamarindo; once you're there, most places of interest are within walking distance. We didn't bother renting one since our hotel offered transportation to/from the airport, and the guides for our day trips provided transportation.
Baby248 - ETA 1/10/13
I know it's not close to Playa Flamingo, but we stayed at the Alma Hotel in Esterillos last summer. We stayed in a nice size room for about $200 a night. It was literally right on the beach. They offer a lot if you are into the outdoors, zip line through the jungle, deep sea fishing, horse back riding on the beach. We're going to go back again in a year or two. It was definitely money well spent.
We went to Puerto Viejo & Manuel Antonio when we were there. As for renting a car, it's up to you. My DH & I love renting a car when we travel & just winging it with a map (which ususally involves taking a wrong turn at least a couple of times, but that's part of the fun, lol).
The roads are not the best there so if you do rent, make sure you get at least a little crossover. Have a great trip!