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Our [Crazy?!] 8 Day Costa Rica Itinerary

8 day costa rica itinerary

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Going on ‘vacation’ with us is less of a vacation and more of an expedition! This is generally due to the fact that it is a physical incapability for Kat to sit still for more than a few minutes. If wanderlust was a medical condition, she’d need a really strong dose of whatever the doctor if prescribing. Phil tolerates it because he loves the rush (and Kat, of course 😉 And so, we introduce to you our [crazy!] 8 day Costa Rica itinerary.

This will be a first time for both of us to be travelling to Central America and we are very excited to be doing it together! It seems like we’ve seen alot of activity on social media surrounding this beautiful destination lately. From the picturesque volcanoes and stunning waterfalls, to the thermal hot springs and exotic rain forests, this destination has it all! With Costa Rica, we were specifically attracted by two main things:

  1. budget travel options;
  2. widely recognized ecotourism and sustainable practices.

Is 8 Days Really Enough??

Definitely not! But we’ve seen folks head there for just the weekend (now THAT is crazy!). So we feel pretty good about our decision to visit there for a week. While Costa Rica isn’t a large country, it covers over 51,000 sq km (!20,000 sq mi), it has SO MUCH TO OFFER!! For our first trip, we’ll be spending it in the north end of the country. We’ve secured a rental car and plan to stay in a different town each night over the course of the week. Because the country sits on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, we decided early in the trip planning stages that we wanted to hit a beach on both coasts. We are also really attracted to the natural beauty of the country and plan to visit several natural wonders inland.

So How Affordable Is It?

So far, our trip cost us less than $1050 USD for the two of us! We purchased round trip flight tickets to San Jose through Spirit Airlines at a STEAL. We reserved our hotels through Bookings.com (see side bar –>), via Ibotta, averaging nightly rates of $45/night (with breakfast included!). And we booked our rental car through Adobe, via mytanfeet.com, which earned us a 20% off discount. We are travelling in the green/wet/off peak season, so that has it’s price point perks as well. If you want to read more about the cost breakdown, check out our post on ‘How We Booked a Trip for Two to Costa Rica for Less Than $1050‘.

Trip Planning Resources

We have been using a couple resources to plan this trip. There are so many places to reference nowadays, between the internet, and traditional, hard print books. We ordered a couple Costa Rica travel guides (Frommer’s and Lonely Planet) off thriftbook.com for less than $4/book (a great resource for all book types).

Because we are budget trip planners, we referenced several websites during the course of securing our accommodations, including Airbnb. For the first time, we explored Bookings.com and it ended up being the best tool for what we were searching for on this trip! Better yet, we booked our accommodations on Bookings.com via Ibotta (referral code hpkyhkm for some free $$) for even more perks (in the form of cash back). Who doesn’t love cash back? We also used a cash back credit card to pay for most of the trip (ie. MORE cash back 😉

costa rica pinterest board
Check out our Costa Rica Pinterest board. https://www.pinterest.com/stayingafloatblog/costa-rica/

We were recently referred to Pinterest as a trip planning tool as well. We have to say, it isn’t a bad idea! If you aren’t familiar, Pinterest is essentially an online storage platform for all those ideas you clipped out of the digital magazine (aka the internet). It’s a great way to store all the trip tips, tricks and ideas you stumble across while browsing the net. Here’s our Costa Rica board.

And have you ever heard of Trello? It’s a sharable ‘to do list’ app with multi user access and easy to use configuration, making it the perfect trip planning tool! You can generate lists for each stage of your trip planning like we did here. Our lists are ‘To Do’, ‘In Process’, and ‘Done!’ We even added an ‘Itinerary’ list to lay our day to day plans in one place.

Costa Rica Trello Board

8 Day Costa Rica Itinerary

So, how do we plan to spend our week you ask? Here is the 8 day Costa Rica itinerary, breakdown day by day. Along with a map detailing the trip layout.

Post-trip Update: Below you’ll find an up to date itinerary with the parts we didn’t get to stricken through, with a quick explanation on why we didn’t get to it. Overall, we pretty much nailed the itinerary which was a pleasant surprise! Be sure to check out each of the links for a full break down of each day).

Day 1

On the first day, we’ll fly into San Jose, a three hour flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Once we arrive, we’ll coordinate with Adobe Rental Cars to pick up our 4 wheel drive vehicle. Then, we’re heading west, out of the city. Our first real stop will be at Carara National Park. The park is open 7am-4pm daily and entrance to the park is $10 pp. (We didn’t make it to Carara National Park due to our flight being delayed as well as a hold up with our luggage. It would have been doable had we arrived into town earlier). Next, we’ll head south to Quepos for the night.

Day 2

On the second day, we’ll spend most of the day wandering Manuel Antonio State Park “the jewel of the Pacific Coast that is home to one of the top beaches in the world”. The park is open 7am-4pm daily (except Mondays) and entrance to the park is $16 pp. After a day of exploring wildlife, we’ll drive to Santa Elana for the night.

Day 3

On the third day, we’ll be exploring Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve. (Unfortunately, when we arrived at the gate, the park was randomly closed for the day. There was a police officer minding the gate and we couldn’t figure out what the deal was. We explored Santa Elana Reserve instead. We also squeezed in a chocolate, coffee and sugar tour as well). Then, we’ll make our way to the Pacific coast where we plan to stay in Tamarindo for the night.

Day 4

Our fourth day in a designated ‘Beach Day’! We plan to take it easy and get a little R&R, chilling out on the sand. Later, we’ll head to Liberia (a ‘layover town’) for the night.

Day 5

On the fifth day, we plan to explore Rincon de la Vieja National Park in the morning. The name of this park translates to ‘the old woman’s corner’ and is home to Los Pailas, a collection of boiling mud pots, steam vents and mini-geysers. We’ll spend the afternoon making our way to La Fortuna for the night, checking out hot springs along the way.

Day 6

The sixth day will be a busy one with a visit to Arenal National Park (aka THE volcano), and hopefully (time permitting) La Fortuna Waterfall. Later that day, we’ll make the long drive to the Atlantic coast and Cahuita for the night.

Day 7

Our seventh day is another designated ‘Beach Day’! Today, we aren’t driving ANYWHERE and will only be exploring the local culture. We plan to chill in Cahuita and will stay there a second night, also, our last night 🙁

Day 8

The eighth day will be an early one as we need to head back to San Jose to return our rental car and fly back to the US.

8 day costa rica itinerary

Preparing to Travel to Costa Rica

Before we make our way to the airport, we’ve got a couple more bases to cover in preparation for the trip. We plan to invest in health insurance, being that we will be travelling internationally.

The research we have done to date suggests that we wait until we arrive in Costa Rica to purchase money. For the most part, it sounds like we will be able to use our credit cards to get by (and collect point ;), but we plan to purchase some local currency to have on hand, just in case. (Plus their money looks really cool!)

As far a packing for the trip, we’ll be relying on our ‘What to Pack for a Trip to the Caribbean‘ post. Stay tuned for our post trip, day by day summary of our trip and whether we stuck to our 8 day Costa Rica itinerary. We’ll also include tips and tricks to either mimic or get more out of the itinerary we designed. Ready to dive in? Get started here.

float on, kat & phil

Have you ever used Pinterest or Trello when planning a trip? What are your go-to trip planning resources?

24 Comments

    • admin

      We mostly use Trello the same Gabby. Someone suggested using it for travel planning so we figured we’d give is a whirl on this trip. Never even occurred to us to use Pinterest until recently. It’s such a great tool all around!

  1. Lina

    Costa Rica is on my bucket list. Hopefully I’ll travel there next year to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I’ll save this blog post since it’s going to help us a lot to planning our trip

    • admin

      That sounds like a lovely reason to plan a trip there Lina! Be sure to check out our post on how we planned our trip for two for less than $1050 USD if you’re on a budget. Happy travels!

  2. Jordyn

    I’ve always wanted to travel to Costa Rica, it sounds like such a beautiful country. Your itinerary sounds so dreamy, and I never realized Costa Rica could be so affordable!

    • admin

      Hey there Jordyn! We really hope the whole itinerary works out, but always try to stay flexible when things don’t. We’ve been able to plan quite affordably so far and are interested to see how sustainable it is one we arrive. Stay tuned for more after the trip. Cheers!

    • admin

      Yes Kileen, we are so very excited about it! Stay tuned for more after the trip. We hope to see you’ve booked tickets in the near future 😉 Happy traveling!

  3. Becky

    You’ve got a lot packed in there! I’m a travel agent and just booked some clients for Costa Rica. They are spending most of their time in Arenal and then to the coast for some beach time. The volcano and sights at Arenal look amazing!

    • admin

      Hey there Becky! We would find it so tough to plan these trips for other folks, but you must love it! We know we’ll be busy, but we’re very excited. Hope to have some great shots to share upon our return. Stay tuned!

  4. Kathy | Tasty Itinerary

    WOW! You guys really are going to be trekking all over Costa Rica in 8 days. Love it! We visited about 5 years ago and stayed at an all-inclusive for a week (it was CHEAP). It was one of those vacays that I really wanted to do nothing for a week and like Kat, I can’t sit still for long. I love the beach, I love to relax and read a book while sunbathing, but after a couple of hours, I’m like, where are we going to next? We booked some activities to explore outside the resort and absolutely fell in love. The food there is amazing as well. I’d like to return and stay near the volcano.

    My favorite part was the wildlife. You’ll never know when you’re run into monkeys.

    I love booking things using miles or cashbacks. It’s like free travel! I’m not the most budget-conscious, but I always try to find discounts and the best deal.

    Have a fabulous time!

    • admin

      Hey Kathy! We bet an all-inclusive would be great too! Where abouts was it? We know we’ll be busy but made a point to schedule in some down time as well. What other activities did you get up to?

      We are also VERY excited to check out some fresh fauna and flora, mix up the day to day a bit.

      Thanks so much for the well wishes! We can’t wait to share our trip with you 🙂 Happy travels!

  5. Cristina

    To be honest everything I know about Costa Rica is that it’s an offshore tax haven, haha.
    I hope I’ll be able to visit it one day. It so, so far away though.

    • admin

      Well that is a curious fact to be aware of! Thanks for sharing. We hope you get there too! In the meantime, check back in with us to satiate your wanderlust 🙂

  6. Chewy Pineapple

    Never heard of Trello but looks good. We are also planning very tight itineraries so have an understanding for it … sometimes it goes wrong but what doesn’t 😁. Also love the layout of your article

    • admin

      Why is it so much fun to plan packed itineraries Chewy?!?! LOL Just need to be mentally prepared for the disappointment but it all makes for great memories! Happy travels!

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