Costa Rica: Our Favorites -- Pura Vida!

Our family had a wonderful and educational trip to Costa Rica, complete with an incredible variety of adventurous outdoor activities, animal sightings and cultural immersion. We recognize that we were only tourists, but we were able to show our kids many of the contrasts of life in Costa Rica vs their home in California and we were able to give them a taste of what life is like for people in other countries. 

As part of our family retrospective, we tabulated the favorite activities, places and hotels for each family member -- potentially as a source of inspiration for others considering a visit to the country.

Favorite Activities: Our top two activities were the Brisa Elegante pirate ship voyage where we saw humpback whales and walked the plank on our way to go snorkeling (everyone's top activity except Lorelei's) and the Venado Caves, where we went spelunking under a waterfall and saw alien-looking scorpion spiders. Waterfall rappelling and speed boat snorkeling came in third and fourth (Pura Vida!)


 

Favorite Hotels: Heliconias Nature Lodge (gorgeous treetop rooms built in fruiting mango trees) was the favorite for everyone but Lorelei, followed by the spacious Koora Hotel in Monteverde, looking out over the cloud forest at sunset. The others were great, but nothing beats Heliconias!



Favorite Cities: Where would we love to live if we moved to Costa Rica tomorrow? The family was really split on the best places in Costa Rica. Surprisingly, Wesley really loved the City life in San Jose (#1), while Lorelei and Stephanie preferred the laid-back (albeit hilly) lifestyle of the beach near Quepos. Dad & Elliott would want to live near the rainforest to be closest to the best nature and hiking activities.


We also put together a few stats illustrating how we spent our time and what we will miss now that we're back in the USA. Not surprisingly, nobody will miss driving in Costa Rica or covering themselves in sunblock and DEET every day, but we will miss all the nature -- and surfing! I see a surfboard in Lorelei's future!
  • Allocation of Waking Hours: 48% planned activities, 19% meals, 18% transit & travel, 15% freetime / relaxing
  • Things We'll Miss: Surfing, No food preparation, Cool animals, Fun adventures, Practicing Spanish
  • Things We Won't Miss: Putting all toilet paper in the trash can (yes, even used TP), Putting on DEET and sunscreen twice daily, Overscheduling, Changing rooms every other night, Terrible roads, Sharing a bed with Wesley (Elliott), Having to say things in Spanish (Lorelei)
  • Items Lost: Nightlights (2); Hair scrunchies (2); Sanitizer bottles (1). Overall, very limited losses / misplaced objects.
  • Items Stolen: None
  • Instances Where We Felt Unsafe (due to crime / seedy individuals): None. We found Costa Rica quite safe.
  • Instances Where We Felt Unsafe On The Road (due to road conditions / other drivers): 100+

Before sharing a few of our favorite pictures from the trip, we'd like to give a shout-out to Two Weeks In Costa Rica (Jenn and Matt), who helped us organize many of the activities of the trip, including our city-by-city itinerary. We have traditionally planned vacations on our own, but Matt and Jenn added tremendous value in the scheduling of this international excursion. Over two weeks, they arranged 17 excursions and we never had any problems with either logistics or the quality of the tour/activity providers. We would wholeheartedly recommend Two Weeks in Costa Rica to anyone considering a trip to Costa Rica with kids (or independently).

Pura Vida!



































 









 









Comments

  1. Our Andean AdventureAugust 13, 2023 at 12:34 PM

    THIS IS AMAZING. Best trip summary ever! And I looooooooove the photos!

    ReplyDelete

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