Costa Rica - 12 day itinerary, family with teen kids

[3sthemagicnumber]

Anyone want to give me some suggestions for our proposed trip to Costa Rica.

Kids are mid-teens, love wildlife, keen walkers, have enjoyed white water rafting etc but mostly not massive adrenalin-junkie types.

We had a very happy holiday there 20 years ago as a couple, but keen to get some more up-to-date perspectives.

Haven't decided yet whether to hire a car or use public transport/private transfers.

Look at the standard itineraries for companies such as Audley, Steppes, Families Worldwide, Stubborn mule travel and nick the ideas

We are going with FWW and doing the ‘Complete Costa Rica’ plus a beach extension.

Thank you - I've been doing a bit of that, but hadn't heard of all these companies, so there's more to go on here!

Intrepid
KE Adventures May also have ideas, but I’ve not been with them.

I’m looking forward to it!

Yeah, I bet! I will check those out too. When are you going

Oh ages yet!! Xmas 23. My FIL will come with us so it took a bit to coordinate.

We visited in August and had an amazing time. I planned it myself using trip advisor and by looking at suggested itineraries on travel company websites. We did private transfers between areas and booked activities ourselves. It was a great holiday, everything went really smoothly. Where are you flying into? The roads in Costa Rica can be quite slow going so it takes a while to get to places!

We are in the process of developing our trip to Costa Rica for next summer @3sthemagicnumber. We’ve used a few itineraries from travel agents to get us going. Would love to spend 3 weeks but think we will limit it to 2 this time.

We will probably do a night or two at a hotel just outside San Jose in Alajuela to get over jet lag before doing Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonia. Other areas I’m considering are Sarapiqui, the Rafiki Safari Lodge and Uviti for whale watching tour though we may do that from MA. I think I’ve ruled out Osa Peninsula for this trip though I’d love to fit it in if we could.

It does feel like we are sticking to the main tourist trail though so if anyone has some hidden gems they can share that are off the beaten track, would love to hear of them!

Flights are about £900 from Heathrow at the moment. Hoping they will come down a bit around Black Friday!

@tootiredtobeinspired any chance you could share your trip details? Personal recommendations have been great so far!

@Namefortodayandtomorrow I'm sure you're aware but don't forget our Summer is their rainy season. Also, we booked our BA Flights in their January sale, and they were around £600 each. iirc. There are 3 direct flights from Gatwick to San Jose per week.

Check out Arenal - lots to see and do to accommodate adrenaline junkies, and those who want to stroll quietly. I really enjoyed it. It was a while ago, tho, so probably best to check something like TripAdvisor to see who's offering tours / excursions there now. I'd avoid Limon - it's not a nice place to visit, and can be unsafe (but then, so can anywhere....).

@Namefortodayandtomorrow sure. We did 14 days and it was me, DH and 2 kids (13 and 16). We flew into Liberia with Tui (Im not sure you can get direct UK flights with anyone else in our summer - the BA flights seem to be autumn/winter as that is Costa Ricas summer) which is in Guanacaste Province in the north west. We spent a couple of days at a hotel in Bagaces as it wasnt too far from the airport so we could get over the jet lag. It was nice enough but in dry forest so not hugely interesting. We then went to Arenal (stayed at Arenal Springs Resort which was nice but a big hotel) for 3 nights and actually could have stayed there longer as there is loads to do. We did the hanging bridges and rainforest tour (loads of companies offer this online, go with a guide though as they spot the animals!) and this was one of our favourite trips. We also did a 'volunteer' experience at a wildlife rescue centre which was great. The centre was Proyecto Asis and you can book directly then arrange transport to take you. Costa Rican law means you are not allowed to touch the animals or go in their enclosures so there is nothing ethically dubious. You basically get a tour round and lots of info from the guide then you get to chop fruit and make the animals dinner! The animals are mainly native species rescued either from the pet trade or road accidents etc, depends what they have in as to what you will see.
We did a horse riding tour to La Fortuna Waterfall which was beautiful and the kids loved.
We then travelled to Monte Verde Cloud Forest (we stayed at Monte Verde Lodge which was lovely) for 3 nights and did a night forest walk (saw quite a few snakes and spiders on that one!) and zip lining (I think there are a couple of parks in the area that offer that) which was fab.
Then we travelled to the coast and stayed in Tamarindo (I wont recommend our hotel as it was nice enough until someone stole money out of our room on our last day) Tamarindo is a busy beach resort with loads of restaurants and hotels and a great beach for surfing. We stayed for 6 nights which on reflection was too long really. I think 3 or 4 days would have been enough. We did surf lessons (kids loved), a mangrove tour (lots of crocs and monkeys) and a catamaran trip (saw turtles, humpback Whales, flying fish and dolphins!)
All in all we absolutely loved Costa Rica. The country is beautiful and teeming with wildlife and the people are really friendly and welcoming. If you go in our summer it is their Green Season (wet season) but actually it didnt make a spot of difference to us. The rain in the rainforest made it more magical and then temperature was always high so it was never cold rain anyway. Also Guanacaste Province and the north west coast is dryer so gets less rain.
For transportation we used ILT Costa Rica and they were spot on, they transported us between hotels and also to a couple of our activities. A lot of the activities offer transport from your hotel as part of the price and a lot of hotels will arrange transportation/ activities for you as well. Im glad we didnt drive ourselves because the roads are VERY potholed particularly up into the mountains. Also it was nice having someone local drive us and they were always willing to stop if there was any interesting wildlife on the side of the road!

Super helpful @tootiredtobeinspired. Thank you for all that detail! Our kids will be 14&16 so similar things will appeal to them I’m sure.

We're going at Christmas for 16 days and our itinerary is Samara (Pacific Coast) > Monteverde > Arenal > Cahuita (Caribbean). We are using shuttles and only getting a car for the last few days as its crazy expensive

Plenty to do in Monteverde and Arenal for teens, my child is only 5 so it's all about the animals for us (we went 10 years ago while backpacking through the region and always said we would go back when we could actually afford to do things)

I downloaded every itinerary from 6 companies and looked into them and then asked the kids to choose what the wanted to do.

sadly, we never got to do any of it (covid). But hopefully one day!