Top Tips For Traveling In Costa Rica! | Planning your first visit

hello i'm tamarindo rich today's video is about if you're planning a trip to costa rica what you should be thinking about sort of things to take into consideration such an amazing country the people are amazing beaches are incredible jungles are great so much wildlife so many things to think about and do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so first thing i think about is what would you want to get out of the trip because there are so many different possibilities here you know if you want a beach holiday there are just endless miles of gorgeous golden white sand if you wanted to go and work on a cattle ranch in the middle of the country he could do that you know if you wanted a cultural experience you know living with the locals that might be a good idea you could volunteer save the monkeys go spend some time on a coffee plantation chop coffee down and pick it and roast it and learn all about that process make pottery using the old old style way of doing things then you've got the volcanoes and the rain forest and the deep sea fishing and all sorts of things so there's just so many things to think about you just need to pick two or three and you could probably mix in a few different things in here but just figure out what kind of holiday you want don't try and do too much but within all those things and then figure out what you want to do and then you can see on the map whereabouts in the country do it and then start to sort of figure out a routine there are two international airports at liberia which is lir and the san jose airport which is sjo so juan santa maria after the most famous costa rican fended off william walker neither liberia nor san jose have really anything to keep you there they just have big airports so i would get out of them as soon as you can if you're if you're stuck with an extra half day you can do a sort of a guided tour around san jose and there's some mildly interesting things to do but if if i were you if you get in at any sensible time of the day get the hell out to your first destination and so you're waking up in the morning in somewhere you want to be rather wake up in the morning in a in a dreary airport hotel one of the greatest attributes of this country are the friendly and welcoming locals there is absolutely no animosity at all towards foreigners here most of them are very curious very friendly would like to hear your story and you can really make some great friends here so take your time and plan into your day to just stop and talk to the people and find out about their lives and tell them about yours and that'll really enrich your experience now also there are people here that are going to take advantage of you and try and make money out of you and you just need to keep that balance of being very open and very willing to you know take a risk and meet new people and do the thing but just be on the lookout there are some people that just try to hang around tourist areas because they're trying to make a buck here and there one story just springs to mind we have watchy man here who will look after your car so you pop the car by the rope by the road there'll be a little old man in a fluorescent jacket with a stick and you'll come in or you know i'll watch it for you and the idea there is that they're protecting the car for you when you come back give him one dollar or two dollar and he's going to be over the moon and say thanks very much and you're fine i heard a story a couple of days ago one of my friends came to me who parked in a car park where i know that watching man he's a great guy and he's been there for years and this guy went to them when they first parked and charged 20 to look after the car and they paid it and then left and he wasn't a watchy man at all he was just some guy that had just asked for some money and then he left and then when they came back to get the car my little man with his stick and his fluorescent jacket asked for his two dollars and they're like no no we already paid the other guy 20. so they were upset and it would it was just you know no one would say affected their trip but you know it was just one of the kind of a negative expert so i just sort of say in general amazingly friendly go for it make some new friends uh but just bring your smiles along the wildlife in costa rica is fantastic um there are just so many animals to see and you don't really have to make that much of an effort i mean i i very rarely moved from my nice little town where i lived i'm very happy here but yeah i just think what i've seen in the last month or so you know sloths i see monkeys every day i've seen humpback whales sharks turtles iguanas every day my patches every day there are so many things to see now you can go on these planned trips so depending on the season they'll be offering tours to certain beaches to see turtles and it's very well run they're you know they they're very careful over the well-being of the animals so the guides that take you have to be certified they'll charge you 130 bucks a person or something like that and you'll go to a beach and they'll come along with a little flashlight tell you where to sit at night time and you'll sit in the dark for a couple of hours and then you'll see these amazing prehistoric turtles come up and lay their eggs and whatever it's a really enriching experience um same thing if you're in the rainforest you're monteverdi you can go on a guided trip and see a load of animals and it's really worthwhile you should always ask the guide how many did you see yesterday because you know there are wild animals so you know there might be just a lot around at that particular time it might be egg laying season but just just ask them and so at least you're sort of matching your expectation with you know the relative what you're gonna see one thing i'd say stay quiet right it's not like disneyland or a zoo where they're there and they're performing for you you know this is the wildlife and you know they react to the noises so you know if you're there and completely silent you're suddenly much more chance to see them than if you're sort of oohing and ringing you know the first hint of something because they're gonna they're gonna go so that would be my suggestion car rental you're probably going to rent a car while you're here that's the best way to get around most economical gives you the most flexibility and the best way you're going to really enrich your experience here most of the car high companies are actually pretty honest i've rented cars a lot in spain and they just try and skin your life or whatever they can here they gen generally tend to be pretty reasonable if you bring your car back late they're going to charge even if it's 10 minutes they're gonna charge you for an extra half day or whatever so yeah it's sort of normal like that uh check out the collision damage waiver thing if you're trying to put it on the american express card just make sure that the agency accepts your car and if you've got to print out your policy you've done that ahead of time you can usually drop them off in a different destination for a charge from where you picked it up and that works well because most places you go to you're going to need the car but for example if you end up on a beach say tamarindo or hakkos i mean you really don't need the car to get around the normal things there so you know if you're playing three or four nights so you might want to come drop your car off the first day and then just spend a few days landing around not doing much discovering the local town and that'll save you a few bucks on a rental my recommendation will be to pack lightly all you need really is a carry-on bag nobody's really dressing up for dinner every evening the weather's pretty much the same every day so you don't need lots of sweaters and jackets and things like that you don't need lots of jewelry here you know it's better to be understated and quiet you don't want to have expensive jewelry so if you leave your car for lunch you're worried about the car or if you leave things in your hotel room and the safes often don't work in the rooms so don't just don't be worried about that kind of thing just leave that at home bring your flip-flops not one nice pair of shoes when you get down here it's hot hot hot every day so just think about bringing light materials and that will really help which brings me nicely on to my next point be careful of petty theft if you leave things in your car visible there's a good chance they're going to get swiped a very little violent crime but there's a lot of opportunistic crime so you know if you're going for lunch and you've got all your bags and all your worldly belongings make sure they're hidden away try and park your car close to where the restaurant is or if there's a watchy man make sure there's a watching man on there um because they they will get in and you'll come back to your car and you're how on earth did they get in because there won't be any signs of it at all and i don't know whether they've got a generic key or whether they've got a little thing but um just be careful of that same thing on the beach you know if you're going for a swim and leaving your stuff you know make sure you're you're keeping an eye on it or you leave someone sitting with it because that that can be a problem same thing with walking down crowded streets you know make sure your wallet and your phones are well tucked away because that kind of petty crime does happen and you should be aware of it so this is a small country that takes forever to get around so you should look at doing these little puddle jumper flights the national airline for these short small 12 seaters is called samsa san sa and that's fantastic you can buy a package of tickets for not much i mean for example tamarindo san jose it's four and a half five hours drive or 30 minutes flight and often you get flights for under a hundred dollars and they're great guys really interesting watching you know watching the country beneath you uh really convenient and and really good idea so if you're planning on zipping around to lots of different places it might be an option that you only drive a part of it and then you take these these short flights and that's really really good okay i'm a really big fan of using airbnbs or these small local hotels in costa rica you've got some all the major chains here with some breathtaking breathtaking hotels but honestly when you after you stay there for five days you can't remember if you're in costa rica or mexico or whatever because you're not really getting any sense of the local flavor in these big hotels so you know it is nice and i've done it and it's great but it's not really costa rica and i'd say there are so many amazing things here related to the local culture the people and everything else we've just talked about then i think it'd be a real shame if you came here and just squirreled yourself away in a in a luxury hotel one other thing i'd say is if you're looking for a beach because most people would plan the tour do the thing and then plan to end up on the beach for a few days and that's that's a really smart move and there are probably 10 great beaches in the country but everyone is completely different to the next you know some are good surfing beaches some aren't some of white sand beaches some have sort of dark volcanic sand some you don't need a car and you've got like a real centre of um you know restaurants and everything going on and nightlife and whatever and others you just have a gorgeous beach and then absolutely nothing so it depends what you're looking for but you don't think that all the beaches are the same don't just go to a beach it just happens to be the one that's at the end of your your chosen route because you'll have a completely different experience depending on which which beach you go to if you like what we've talked about today please like and subscribe below one thing i would recommend i've got another video in this series called 10 don'ts and so that should go hand in hand with watching this one because now i've told you all the things you should do and the other one tells you all the things you shouldn't do thanks [Music] you

Channel: Tamarindo Rich

Views: 117,833

Keywords: 10-19-19

Id: sBEt2omgyAo

Length: 12min 32sec (752 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021