When people ask me where they should backpack, whether they’re seasoned backpackers or going for the first time, my first thought is always Costa Rica. Costa Rica blew my expectations way out of the water. I couldn’t have imagined seeing and doing as much as I had in the three weeks that I was there, especially for how little it cost. So here’s why I think you need to travel to Costa Rica: Continue reading “10 Reasons to Backpack Costa Rica”
For all those of you who have and use snapchat, I’m sure you are aware of the super fun snapchat passport stories where the app will make a montage of stories from a particular city or country. Well, it just so happened that as we were in Costa Rica, snapchat decided to make a Costa Rica Snapchat Story! It was my goal the entire day to get on to this story (to the complete indifference of the friend I was traveling with who barely knows how to even use snapchat). Considering the title of this post it’s no surprise that we got on!!!! 4 millions views later and I can officially call ourselves snapchat famous! Continue reading “We Became Snapchat Famous in Costa Rica”
Who knew that you could make customized maps on googlemaps? AMAZING.
Here’s where we ventured to last month in the beautiful Costa Rica. We went from San Jose – Manuel Antonio – La Fortuna – Monteverde – San Jose – Mal Pais – Santa Teresa – San Jose Continue reading “Backpacking Costa Rica”
Backpacking Costa Rica: 16 nights, 17 days
** Prices are in USD**
**Also some of these prices i.e. for tours, were cheaper because I was travelling with a friend**
Flight: $420 [Thunder Bay-Toronto-San Jose with West Jet)
Hostels: $269
Broken down: Manuel Antonio x3 nights – $43, La Fortuna x4 nights – $65, Monteverde x2 nights – $25, San Jose x2 nights – $26, Santa Teresa x4 nights – $60, San Jose x1 night (in a hotel) – $50 Continue reading “My Costa Rica Travel Budget”
To begin this story let’s just mention that I was not mentally prepared to hike a volcano in the extreme humidity of Costa Rica and 37 degrees Celsius. Your skin literally just becomes sweat and you have to accept this 3 minutes in to the climb. Climbing Cherro Chato wouldn’t be so difficult if it weren’t for the insane heat and humidity. It’s a steep 1500 meters up to the top. For the first three quarters it’s a steady climb but the last quarter you’re basically rock climbing.
Public transit is easily the cheapest way to travel within Costa Rica. The only downside is sometimes it takes longer, few people speak English and there is no air condition. However, speaking limited Spanish we have managed to navigate the system fairly easily!
From Manuel Antonio you need to catch the city bus to the Quepos bus station. It costs 305 colones (about 60 cents) and the bus station is the last stop. Ask you hostel ahead of time what time the bus leaves from the bus station and give yourself 30 mins ahead to get there in time just in case. From Quepos take the bus to Punteranas (4,500 colones). Ours left at 7:30am and there was one leaving every 2 hours starting at 5:30am. It is about a 3 hour drive. Then from Punteranas you need to take a second bus to San Ramon (2,500 colones). It is about an hour and a half drive. Then from San Ramon you take a bus to La Fortuna (about 3,000 colones). This bus is around 2 and a half hours. Unfortunately when we got to San Ramon our bus had already left and we would have had to wait for four hours till the next one in 40 degrees Celsius weather – no thank you! Instead some guy called us a taxi who said would catch up to the bus that had already left. It was very amazing race style as we chased down the bus and got him to pull over on the side of the street to let us on! But thankfully we made it to our beautiful hostel (resort by our standards) in La Fortuna! Continue reading “How to Get from Manuel Antonio to La Fortuna: Public Transit”
Day 2 of our adventure and we signed up for an ATV tour in Manuel Antonio. I would have preferred just renting them on our own but it’s difficult to do in this area because you need to get out of the city in order to get on good ATV paths. So we spent the 70USD and booked ourselves a fun tour with safari adventure tours. They picked us up from our hostel at 7:30 and we were off to the jungle. The tour guide was super fun, nice and very knowledgable on the area. The tour was phenomenal! He took us through rivers, the jungle and we even stopped at a waterfall and jumped in.
