Experiences in Costa Rica

CULTURAL TOURISM

We are the country of pura vida – a friendly, multicultural and multilingual people descended from the cultural fusion of immigrants, including Africans, Chinese, Jews, Lebanese and Italians, and the indigenous peoples of the Bribrí, Cabécar, Maleku, Teribe, Boruca, Ngäbe, Huetar and Chorotega groups.

Costa Rican sustainable cuisine ranges from the traditional to the innovative at restaurants, sodas, markets and farmers markets, using a variety of organic products, and tailored to meet any budget and level of demand.

Visitors can take a little piece of the Costa Rican soul home with them with handicrafts made by the hands of our artisans, which adds value to a travel experience.

Artistic expressions of music, dance, theater, cinema, handicrafts and audiovisual production are distinguished for their professionalism and quality.

In addition, the experiences of community-based rural tourism, developed by cooperatives or community associations, take you inside the lively culture of rural communities; there also are private ecological reserves, farms and areas of interest, or sites close to areas of environmental and cultural interest, with tourist services.

Costa Rica also offers world-renowned cultural wonders, including: the oxherd and oxcart – a masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage – chiefdom settlements and the stone spheres of southern Costa Rica, and the Guayabo National Archaeological Monument. Other nationally prized offerings and cultural traditions shared with visitors include creole swing dance, Limón calypso, traditional Chorotega ceramics, the Boruca Little Devils Festival, art, crafts, music and gastronomy, among others.

In the multiple tourist regions visitors can find everything from home cooking to modern, traditional, sophisticated, vegetarian and vegan restaurants, with a range of food prepared with fresh and natural ingredients.

Visit our markets, farmers markets and organic fairs in major cities across the country to discover the products we offer.

Costa Ricans have more than a century of democratic traditions and more than 50 years without an army. Its military was abolished in 1948 and the money the country saves by not having armed forces is invested in improving the standard of living of its inhabitants, which helps maintain the social peace that makes Costa Rica a wonderful place to visit.

ECO TOURISM
Travelling with responsibility
Costa Rica is a lush country where nature is on display in all its splendor thanks to extraordinary biodiversity. This product is based on studying and observing salient features of nature, and ecological, geological and other processes, such as bird watching, observation of flora and fauna, volcanoes, hiking, trails and national parks.

The territory is divided into 29 national parks, 19 wildlife refuges, 8 biological reserves, and a series of protected areas that captivate lovers of ecotourism activities. Excursion offerings and tours are varied, including: horseback riding, hiking mountain trails, guided tours for bird watching, forests, landscapes and natural heritage sites, as well as aerial trams, lakes and rivers full of flora and fauna.

This tourism product not only aims to provide beautiful natural experiences for tourists, but also to educate visitors about the importance of protecting natural resources.

FAMILIES FUN
Feeling like family
Costa Rica has a wholesome environment and is an excellent place for families, with plenty of exciting activities everyone will enjoy including walks, guided visits, group games, interacting with the locals, enjoying the local cuisine, beach sports and much more.

A Valley of Culture
The capital of the country, San José is the epitome of culture and entertainment. The National Theater offers inspiring performances, while the Gold Museum features Pre Columbian and Costa Rican art. If you’d like to know more about the local culture, the National Museum will take you through Costa Rica’s history while the Children’s Museum will take you and your family on an interactive learning adventure.

Activities to Choose From
Costa Rica offers a wide range of activities suited to every taste and budget. Any one of the many national parks and biological reserves areas are fun for hiking with the entire family while an afternoon fishing for trout and tilapia might round out the day.

Adventures on Land
We’ve many exciting expeditions and walks to see Costa Rica’s natural beauties. There are mountain biking, ATV’s or horseback rides to explore the different landscapes full of flora and fauna. Many other attractions to enjoy the forest, include traveling or zip lining among the trees, canopy tours, or perhaps easy and fun walking on hanging bridges.

Adventures on Water
A very popular adventure among families with young or teenage members is rafting. Popular areas for this sport are the Pacuare, Reventazón, Sarapiquí, and Corobicí rivers. Rafting provides fun times while enjoying the fascinating view, surrounded by nature. This country’s coasts have the advantage of warm waters throughout the year, which offers the opportunity of visiting anytime. Fun-filled family moments include surfing, Jet Skiing, riding banana boats, or simply playing with the waves and sand. Costa Rica’s marine adventures include skin diving, snorkeling, swimming, boating or kayaking.

Rural tourism and community-based rural tourism
Rural Tourism (R.T.) and Community-Based Rural Tourism (C.R.T.) provide an authentic experience with personalized attention that allows you to enjoy our form of rural living, and to get know the essence and identity of Costa Ricans. It is characterized by quality provided by every company that offers these products.

In a perfect combination of nature and culture, you will discover Costa Rica’s “Pura Vida” lifestyle while enjoying and sharing diverse environments of peace, comfort and communal living with our customs and traditions, immersed in a magnificent natural diversity.

The family environment that is characteristic of this offering allows you to enjoy personalized attention and helps you learn about rural culture, farming traditions and small artisanal industries. It invites you inside rural living in our country through traditional cuisine, authenticity of the communities, and the wealth that comes from living in a natural environment where sustainable practices promoted by business owners dominate as part of this product.

BIRDWATCHING
900 species of birds have been registered in all the territory
Costa Rica has long been famous among serious bird watchers and many people who never before had an interest change their mind when they encounter the country’s spectacular avian diversity.

With almost 900 species of birds – more than all of North America – concentrated into an area half the size of Kentucky, it is hard not to become an instant fan of the beautifully feathered creatures one encounters in Costa Rica. Local travel agencies provide experienced nature guides who make any bird watching expedition an enjoyable and educational experience.

Diversity
One of the reasons for Costa Rica’s extraordinary bird life is the country’s great variety of habitats: rain forests; mangrove swamps; beaches; cloud forest; rivers and more. Any two of those ecosystems, with their resident bird species, are often only a short distance apart. Birders from North America who visit Costa Rica during the northern winter invariably recognize familiar faces in the forest, since many species of warblers, flycatchers, vireos, orioles, etc. migrate to Costa Rica every winter.

Preservation
The country’s exemplary system of National Parks and Protected Areas provides more than ample stomping grounds for birders, but just about anywhere in Costa Rica interesting avian species are spotted. Colorful varieties like the blue-grey tanagers, great kiskadees and crimson-fronted parakeets can be seen twittering and hopping around the gardens of San Jose hotels. True bird watching enthusiasts will want to see the resplendent quetzal, which lives in the cloud forests of Monteverde, Los Santos region and the Central Volcanic Mountain Range. The equally spectacular scarlet macaw can be seen on the Osa Peninsula and around the Carara Biological Reserve.

WELLNESS
Resting in paradise
If you are looking for the ideal place to improve your mental and physical well-being, adopt healthy habits and activities into your lifestyle, liberate your soul and return like a new person, then Costa Rica could be your next travel destination.

Costa Rica is the ideal setting for detoxification from stress and the daily grind. You can experience Wellness tourism as part of a lifestyle that combines physical activity and healthy eating, while enjoying a wide range of activities to renew your mind, body and soul.

Wellness includes activities that put you in contact with nature: Trekking (low-difficulty walks), Forest baths (breathing in the fresh air of the forest), Earthing (barefoot walks on the earth/sand), high-quality healthy food, a combination of spa and lunch (splunch) and consumption of local products in a natural setting.

In Costa Rica, you can also experience innovative relaxation techniques such as body wraps, in which volcanic mud, coffee, tropical fruits and chocolate are used to moisturize your skin; hydrotherapy and hot springs are another way to harness the water resources of our country for personal renewal by letting positive energy flow throughout the body.

These wellness features, typical of Costa Rica, have helped create one of the planet’s blue zones, or longevity areas. A 2004 study by the University of Costa Rica found that mortality among Costa Ricans of 90 years of age is 10% lower in the Nicoya Peninsula, south of Guanacaste. The calcium-rich water of this area, healthy eating, family living and the “pura vida” lifestyle are secrets to longevity.

This is a unique lifestyle that is experienced only in Costa Rica, whose essence is Wellness

CRUISING
Coast to coast natural beauty
Land ahoy!
All this natural beauty comes with advantages that will make each trip more enjoyable: Tour operators with broad experience in serving cruises, multi-cultural cuisine, a safe atmosphere and many recreational activities. The beautiful coasts of the Caribbean and Pacific Region can also be easily accessed.

Costa Rica is an unforgettable experience, not only for its natural beauty, but also for its people. Costa Ricans, or “Ticos,” are warm, friendly and love to share their culture with visitors.

Coast to Coast, Close to any Destination
There’s so much to do and experience in Costa Rica. There are volcanoes, national parks, forests, local culture, hiking, bird watching and much more. The capital city, San Jose, is conveniently located and less than three hours away from every port of call. The National Theater, located downtown, is a centuries-old jewel that no one should miss. The Gold and Jade Museums make for an enriching and dazzling cultural visit as well.

Ports in the Caribbean Coast
From Limon, everything from bird and turtle watching in the north to beautiful beaches in the south is easily accessible. Canopy tours, horseback tours, nature observation, the canals of Tortuguero, visits to pineapple plantations, tropical flower plantations, sugar haciendas or banana plantations and even a city tour are all available. Puerto Limon has a privileged location in the Caribbean, for its proximity to the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Southern part of the United States. Distinguished cruise companies, such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Premier Holland America, and many others come to Puerto Limon during cruise season that runs from October through April. The Port of Moin is 8.2 km to the west from Limon. The Limon-Moin port complex is one of the most important of its kind in Central America. It connects Costa Rica with major international markets in the United States, Latin America and Europe.

Ports in the Pacific Coast
Puntarenas and Caldera are the two main ports in the Costa Rican Pacific coast. Puntarenas and Caldera are less than two hours from the National Parks like Manuel Antonio and Carara. In the Central Valley, there is the awesome Poas Volcano and Sarchi, where visitors will find a wide display of the work of local artisans at affordable prices. San Jose, the capital city, is approximately two hours away from Puntarenas. The Central Pacific region offers tours offering horseback, alligator watching, aerial trams, white water rafting, and thrilling walks along suspension bridges high amid glorious tree tops.

A Complete Tour
Thanks to its location, Costa Rica is a biological bridge for botanical and zoological species. Its territory forms a narrow passage that shelters flora and fauna from North and South America. There is also a wide range of amazing indigenous species.

MEETINGS AND INCENTIVE
TRAVELING COSTA RICA
We are the ideal destination to hold your next meeting or incentive travel. Bring professionals in your field together in a country recognized for its diverse attractions and activities, connectivity, world leadership in sustainability and state-of-the-art and technologically advanced infrastructure and services.

MEETINGS AND INCENTIVE TRAVEL IN COSTA RICA
Costa Rica represents an excellent alternative for planning meetings and incentive travel. We offer a wide array of attractions for visitors and a tourist sector that is renowned for its creativity and professionalism. Numerous testimonials speak to the excellent results that have been obtained by events held in our country. We would like to share some of the most important reasons to consider us as a destination for your next meeting or incentive trip: connectivity, a strategic location, excellent infrastructure, well-being and quality, experience, a high educational level, sustainability and a diversity of activities.

Costa Rica’s greatest wildlife spectacles
To make a calendar of the biological events that have fascinated us over many years of wandering in National Parks and reserves and publish it as a book has been a long-time dream of ours. However, it wasn’t until we actually embarked on this path that we realized the enormity of the task we faced, and if we were able to achieve it after three years work it was only thanks to the enormous and incredibly generous network of researchers who continue monitoring their respective areas of research throughout the country.

Costa Rica’s Greatest Wildlife Spectacles – On The Wing
An estimated five million birds migrate through Costa Rica every year. The magnitude of this phenomenon is barely noticeable because most travel by night, at cruising speed powered by the wind, soaring within the clouds or taking advantage of air currents formed by the mountains. Others skirt the coastline, landing at sundown to catch insects and rest for a few hours before continuing on their voyage.

Over Costa Rica, birds converge from the Arctic Circle, Alaska, the Canadian tundra, the U.S. Great Lakes and the east and west coasts of the United States. Spanning 8 to 11 degrees north of the equator, Costa Rica acts as a funnel point for migrating birds. The country’s mountain ranges and vast lowlands bordering the Atlantic and Pacific oceans create many different habitats and ecosystems.

Above our heads, as we sleep or go about our daily routines, legions of birds are passing overhead. Thanks to their excellent vision, migrating birds use groups of stars to orient themselves in relation to the horizon. Some sense the Earth’s magnetic field. Others sense low frequency sound produced by the breaking surf or the prevailing winds over the topography. Pelagic birds travel solely over the ocean, making brief stops on islands and ocean-side cliffs.

Night flying migrants include forest dwelling birds as well as shorebirds, from warblers, tanagers, orioles and grosbeaks, to sandpipers, plovers and gulls. Other birds, such as hummingbirds, swallows and raptors migrate during the day. Larger diurnal species such as egrets, herons and storks form large groups and fly in a “V” formation using their broad wings to gain lift from rising air currents, reaching great heights without flapping.

Because most birds migrate at such high altitudes, they aren’t visible to the naked eye and scientists use radars can detect them. About half of migratory birds migrate below 1,000 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l), 30 percent do so between 1,000 and 2,000 m.a.s.l. and the remainder at higher altitudes. Ornithologists who study migratory species usually observe these birds when they are feeding in a particular area of the country, but they rarely see them arrive.

Costa Rica’s Greatest Wildlife Spectacles – On Land
There are few natural spectacles more impressive than the massive arrival of sea turtles. At night, turtles will gather near the coast in preparation for their departure from the water to come ashore in an extraordinary effort to lay their eggs and thus ensure the next generation. They return to the same beach where they nested before, guided through the vast ocean by instincts and skills difficult to understand. These arrivals detonate other natural cycles that cascade through the ecosystem, taking advantage of this majestic natural happening. Predators, from rodents, raccoons and coatis, as well as coyotes, jaguars and even humans come to the nesting beaches for their part of the bounty. The turtles themselves dig up eggs of neighboring nests from lack of space. Despite the feast, thousands of hatchlings are born to refresh the populations of these species.

Similarly, events such as the first storms of the rainy season ignite large concerts of frogs and toads, frantically looking for their partners to take advantage of each pool, each wetland and every puddle to deposit the next generation. Some wear bright, elegant colors for courtship, while others take advantage of the great reproductive distraction to catch a meal or two. As with turtles, the survival strategy is the massive event. Hundreds of thousands of eggs or tadpoles can feed a variety of animals, snakes, fish, and even peccaries and birds, still leaving many more to ensure the success of the species.

Even crocodiles show a preference of reproducing in groups, using seasonal rains and flooded areas for the offspring to develop without as much danger. Despite being relatively primitive reptiles in regards of evolution, her motherly care is exemplary, defending her nest and even keeping the newly born safe from potential predators. In this case, the more numerous they are, the better their chances of survival.

Unlike sea turtles and amphibians, squirrel monkeys are not as abundant as to create a massive presence. However, they have a strategy of synchronized reproduction that has not been observed in other primates that exist in the country. Squirrel monkeys mate seasonally, taking advantage of natural resources in the forest, such as fruits and seeds that feed the mothers and provide nourishment to the newborn. Squirrel monkeys at Manuel Antonio have their own birth schedule which differs from the subspecies in Corcovado and thus each ecosystem provides us with its own timing, waiting to be explored.

Natural events respond to signals provided by the weather, rainfall, temperature, or the presence of other animals. These cycles create a truly wonderful tangle of relationships, forming a complex food web where reproduction of a species supports the survival of many others.

Costa Rica’s Greatest Wildlife Spectacles – By Sea
Costa Rica´s territory became eleven times larger when its tricolored flag was first raised over the peak of Colnett Point in September 1869. The claim to Coco Island, roughly 500 kilometers off shore in the Pacific Ocean, gave this small country of only 51,000 square kilometers an exclusive economic zone of 574,000 square kilometers.

In these vast territorial waters, Costa Rica protects coral reefs, beds of seagrass, a thermal dome, an oceanic trench more than 4,000 meters deep and an underwater mountain range more massive than the Talamanca, Guanacaste and Central Volcanic ranges combined. A chain of underwater volcanoes and mountains some two thousand meters high starts just offshore of Quepos and runs south west towards the Galapagos. Interestingly, Cocos Island is the only visible point of this underwater ridge. This ridge serves as an aquatic highway for juveniles of diverse marine species that enrich the waters of the Eastern Tropical Pacific.

In its deep blue womb, Costa Rica shelters more than 6,700 marine species, 90 of which are unique on the planet. The country is best known to the world for its rainforests, not for its rich marine life which still remains quite unknown and unexplored. The rich marine resources are unexplored even by Ticos (a nickname for Costa Ricans) because these sites are remote and sparsely populated. Among the aquatic wonders is the Thermal Dome of Costa Rica, an oceanic phenomenon caused by the strong winds and ocean currents which creates an upwelling of plankton and an oasis navigated by blue whales, dolphins, whale sharks, and large concentrations of fish and marine mammals. In the Southern Pacific, the Golfo Dulce has once again acquired impressive marine life, thanks to the elimination of trawling and long-line fishing with live bait as far as 20 miles offshore.

Despite its overall small size, Costa Rica has a long Pacific coastline. Some 1,160 kilometers of bays, gulfs, steep topography and two large peninsulas touch the sea. From these landmarks, with more and more frequency, we can observe large marine mammals swimming just off the coast.

In December and January, trade winds cool the waters of Papagayo Bay, causing upwelling: deeper waters rise to the surface, carrying large amounts of nutrients which stimulate an incredible growth of algae as they come into contact with the sunlight. This chain of events creates the opportunity to see huge Humpback Whales in courtship and caring for calves. Those who look carefully also may see aggregations of Devil Rays jumping out of the water, hundreds of dolphins in the Murciélago Islands and occasionally Orcas. These false killer whales are attracted to Guanacaste’s coast by the abundance of rays and whale calves. Every month of the year in Csota Rica, there is a marine spectacle worth watching.