I often tell friends that the planning and researching for your vacation can be half the fun of the entire trip.  That’s why I love AAA’s planning tools, and that’s why you may be reading this blog now! But on my recent week-long visit to Costa Rica - my first trip there - business obligations and Christmas preparations kept me from putting in my usual amount of planning: research, cross-referencing, map-scouring and article-reading. 

I had dreamed of visiting Costa Rica for several years, having heard so much about the eco-tourism, the adventure sports, the laid-back beaches and the optimum climate in December for a tropical getaway.   My 17-year-old son’s recent immersion into environmental science was the tipping point that led me to book our holiday trip. 

So I had a basic outline of our route from San Jose north to Santa Elena, then on to La Fortuna and Volcano Arenal, then south again to the Los Suenos area on the Pacific coast. I had made the necessary hotel reservations, had a Hertz car rental reservation, a fairly lousy map and  my AAA Travel Money card. But I was winging it more than I normally would.

Well, I don’t have the disaster story you might be expecting next--our trip went off without a major hitch and we soaked up a lot of Costa Rican Pura Vida.  But I did have a few experiences that I would pass along to others planning a Costa Rican holiday so that you might benefit from my rookie behavior on this adventure:

1.You can use U.S. currency practically everywhere.  Sounds like a pompous American thing to say, but it’s true.  Often you are given a price in dollars only, and usually in dollars and the local currency, colones.  1000 colones was around $2 at the time we were there, so $200 is 100,000 colones!  From “turismo” van drivers to small cafes to the toll-road fees, the dollar is accepted everywhere.

2. You can travel to a lot of popular destinations without renting a car.  I shifted into my manual driving skills that hadn’t been used in 15 years, and drove all the way from sea level up nearly 2000 feet to Santa Elena and Monteverde. Then I had a couple of days to think about the drive back down the mountain…not relaxing thoughts!    I do feel that driving is an incredible way to experience your vacation destination if you are exploring many areas, but in the middle of our trip, I read about this convenient van/bus service that is an extensive network of transportation throughout Costa Rican tourism hot spots.  It may have cost less than my tiny little five-speed rental car and without the experience I will describe below in tip #3.  In my limited pre-trip research, I did read about the “bus service”, but I had mistakenly though it was a municipal bus line making multiple stops and not a good plan for us. Check out EasyRide or Interbus for more details.

3. If visiting Santa Elena, Monteverde and Volcano Arenal, read tip #2 again and think carefully about driving it yourself.   Although experiencing a few misadventures like this is what makes travel a piece of your life’s fabric, the drive into Santa Elena on our first full day in Costa Rica was one of the most challenging travel experiences I’ve had in two decades. The ONLY routes into this very popular tourism area start with a very nice highway that turns into a pretty good two-lane road until you must drive straight up the mountain for an hour or more on a stone road filled with huge potholes and cliff-like drops off the side! The positive to this 10-mile-an hour drive uphill are the incredible view back down to sea level and some pretty funky local scenery.  The area is very rural and we stopped counting all of the dogs that greeted us- we were even chased uphill by a duo of a husky and a chihuahua!

But you might consider traveling from San Jose to La Fortuna, then visiting Santa Elena via the jeep/ferry/jeep:   We did the opposite, driving from San Jose to Santa Elena, leaving the car for the “jeep”, which is really one of the ubiquitous “turismo” vans, and the bone-jangling ride of one-hour and 45 minutes to Lake Arenal to catch the ferry. The drive on the unpaved road isn’t much easier in a 10-passenger van, but that’s how it’s done.  Had I known about the “Rocky Road” experience, I would have altered our drive plan and possibly visited the Pacific coast first, then headed back toward San Jose on the very modern freeway, then north to La Fortuna on continuous well-paved road.

4. Embrace the Costa Rican philosophy pura vida, or pure life.  Our Costa Rican adventure was just that—an adventure, and a time to let go.  I think the fact that we weren’t on a strict itinerary and I wasn’t exactly sure of what we would encounter next was just what we needed on our holiday from our everyday busy lives. 

From my balcony at the beautiful El Establo resort in Santa Elena, I let go the stress of the journey up the mountain and just gazed at the clouds in silence, watching their shifting shapes that misted light rain one moment then dispersed the next minute into bright sun rays.  I let go of any worries over my first zipline ride at Selvatura and had an amazing time, keeping pace better than people 20 years younger than me.  When my son and I rode tandem on a half-mile line over the Costa Rican forest, I just soaked in our shared experience and felt the joy of Pura Vida!