Costa Rica Notes

This is more for myself for future reference... but I post it here in case anyone else is interested.

Rental car- would have waited to use a rental car until after leaving SanJose. While driving in Costa Rica was definetly an adventure, it was nice to come and go as we pleased and not have to always worry about finding a taxi, or catching a bus.

Transportation in general- Would maybe look into Nature's Air flights to the major destinations and just rented a car/moped once in the area. The distances weren't all that far, but driving took forever since the roads are so narrow and turning. I was hesitant about small plans in a different country- but they actually looked pretty reputable.

Hotels- Definetly stay in a hotel closer to the airport (I hadn't realize the airport was 15-20 minutes from SanJose even though its called the SanJose airport. And it would have been really nice to just have a shuttle service to/from the airport. When traveling in the green season (not as busy) it might have been better to not have reservations to allow for more flexibility- to instead have a list of a few reputable hotels in our price range and just check in/out as we pleased. Although it was reassuring to know my mom knew where/when we'd be places so that she could get in touch with us in an emergency. Definitely loved LaPosada at Manuel Antonio and would stay there again in a heartbeat!!! Would stay closer to the volcano and more outside of LaFortuna if returning to the Arenal area (I picked a hotel in LaFortuna thinking it'd be good to be close to everything- but everything we wanted to do was closer to the volcano).

Food- I did pick hotels that included a breakfast, which was good and I would do again. But I would also make sure they had refrigerators (most did anyway) and would go to the store and buy basic things to make lunches to save on costs, especially since the food was not only expensive, but not very good. I would also have looked up reviews on restaurants in the areas we were visiting in advance- so we might have increased our odds on a good experience/cost.

Money- For Costa Rica we found no need to change money at a bank. Most all the restaurants, and certainly hotels and tourist attractions/activities took credit cards. Where we used cash we could almost always use dollars, and got back change in colones that we could use where we needed local denominations.