1 destination · 10 things to do
Costa Rica
Costa Rica packs volcanoes, cloud forest, rainforest and hot rivers into a country smaller than West Virginia, and the classic first trip splits neatly between two bases. San José, the capital in the cool Central Valley, is where most visitors land, and it rewards a day or two more than its reputation suggests: a gilded 1897 opera house paid for by coffee, a museum of pre-Columbian gold hidden beneath Plaza de la Cultura, and easy day trips up to the steaming crater of Irazú or the waterfalls and rescued jaguars of La Paz Waterfall Gardens. Three hours north-west, La Fortuna sits at the foot of Arenal Volcano, a near-perfect cone that erupted without warning in 1968 and smoked for four decades afterwards. Today it is resting, and the town around it has become the adventure capital of the country, with old lava-flow trails to hike, a seventy-metre waterfall to swim beneath, hanging bridges through the rainforest canopy, ziplines over the treetops and natural hot springs to soak in after dark. A full day further out, the impossibly blue Río Celeste rewards a muddy hike. This guide shows what to book, what each experience is really like, how to split your days between the capital and the volcano, and where to stay, from a hot-springs resort with a private wildlife sanctuary to a historic hotel facing the National Theatre.
