Costa Rica

manuel antonio costa rica activities



Can anyone suggest a 2 week itinerary for vacationing in Costa Rica?

I am planning a trip to Costa Rica with my girlfriend in Mid-March. We want to do alot of active sightseeing, sport activities, and of course alot of beach relaxation time. I have heard that avoiding the Caribbean side of the country may be a good idea if you are only there for 2 weeks. Can anyone tell me (hopefully from personal experience) a great 2 week itinerary? You can lay it out like so

Hi! First you’ll have to excuse me for my english, it’s not my first language…I went with my boyfriend in Costa Rica in 2002 for 2 weeks, we enjoyed every bit of our trip, it’s a very nice country. Here’s our itinerary:
1rst day: Arrival in San Jose: We stayed at the Hotel Plaza, witch is well located in the center of the city.
2nd day: Esterillos este (Flor de Esterillos resort): http://pages.infinit.net/taus/english.html This is a little resort hosted by french canadian (they speak english) where you can relax on the beach and travel around for a few days. They rent little cottages and offer nice meals for extra charges.
3rd day: Manuel Antonio: From our resort we took a bus and visited this extraordinary park where you can hike, relax on the beach…
4th day: Jaco: Also from our resort we went one day to visit this small city crowded with surf lovers, there’s a lot of little boutiques to visit, internet cafe, etc. You can rent boards or body surfs to have a blast in these great waves
5/6th: We stayed relaxed at the beach
7/8/9th days: Montezuma: we stayed at http://www.beach-hotel-manchas.com/ … this is the best part of our trip, Montezuma is a place where you can do a lot of activities and relax and the same time, great little restaurants and boutiques. The only thing that we where a little disapointed is the excursion to turtle island, we went there to do snorkling but we saw nothing but rocks and plants…they do offer a great meal though (fish cooked on a grill) and a little music/dance show
10/11th days. Monte Verde/ Santa Elena: If you like hiking, this is a great place to go. Very nice cloud forest, a lot of birding to do. You have a 3 hours trip in scolar bus to do, but it is worth the travelling. We stayed a the youth hotel one night and at the Hotle de Montana Monteverde (very expensive, but it’s the only place that we found! So book yourself a room in a hotel before getting there!!)..Activities: Canopy tours, Volcan Arenal, hiking…we liked the Pizza Johnny restaurant, very very nice!
12/13th day. San Jose: We visited the city, it’s a safe place to travel, be carefull not to show your belongings. If you like museums there’s the Museo nacional that we enjoyed. There’s a few markets where you can buy nice crafts or souvenirs…
In San Jose you don’t need a car to travel around, you can walk, this is the most pleasant way to visit.
That’s about it, Costa Rica is a great and safe country and you’ll see that in 2 weeks you only see a little part of it…have a great trip!!!