Eight Days of Costa Rica Adventures with Two Young Kids
Rainforests, volcanos, monkeys, waterfalls, sloths, zip lines, parrots, beaches, suspended bridges, iguanas, hot springs… Costa Rica has an absolute riches of excitement for everyone. Halfway through 2021, with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout underway, the world seemed to be on its way to a new normal. International travel seemed like a possibility again. And so we started talking about a vacation over Thanksgiving break. (J was about to enter Kindergarten so now we are mostly tied to a school calendar for our adventures.)
Costa Rica has been a destination at the back of our minds for awhile. Scott traveled there several years ago, and while we would not be doing a trip as off-the-beaten-path that he did, he has been wanting to return and see more of the country. With the kids now at 4 and 5 years, we knew that Costa Rica would be a huge hit with them. Lots of wildlife and plenty of different activities – they would have a blast! As with the price of most things these days, airfare was spiking over that holiday break. I think there were probably a lot of people like us – optimistic and with a travel bug itch. We played around with dates and found decent airfare, leaving the Sunday before Thanksgiving and returning the Tuesday after. J would have to miss two days of school, but we think it is a good trade off for an enriching experience in a different country.
We booked our tickets in July 2021 and also booked refundable accommodations. And then I’m sure you can recall… the Delta variant hit in August. By this point we were no strangers to trip cancellations, so we started to make peace with the fact that Costa Rica was unlikely. But we still kept a sliver of hope and held onto all of our reservations. As the school year started and the Delta wave came and started to wane, our optimism for the trip went back and forth. In mid-October, we both thought we would be cancelling. But then by the end of October, Covid cases started to drop off, and all of a sudden, our trip to Costa Rica was a reality!
Located in Central America, Costa Rica spans from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. It contains mountainous landscape with several volcanos and boasts gorgeous sandy beaches on both sides of the country. The rainforests that cover the country are home to a variety of wildlife, including our kids’ favorite: the sloth! We wanted to see as much of Costa Rica as we could, so we decided to split our time between the mountains and the beach. Now we had the difficult decisions of where in the mountains, which beach, how long at each, etc. Ultimately we decided to spend 3 nights in La Fortuna, at the base of the Arenal volcano, spend one night right outside Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast, and then 3 nights on Playa Hermosa for beach fun. Because of our late and early flights, we also had a bookend night on each side of the trip in San Jose near the airport. The only place that I was really disappointed we couldn’t fit in was the Monteverde cloud forest – but we will have to save that for a future trip.
Costa Rica 8 Day Itinerary
Day 0
Flight from Houston to San Jose, hotel stay near airport
Day 1
La Paz Waterfall Gardens
Catarata del Toro & Blue Falls
Arrive in La Fortuna
Day 2
Mistico Hanging Bridges
Arenal Volcano National Park
Baldi Hot Springs
Day 3
La Fortuna Waterfall
Zip-lining Tour
Day 4
Drive from La Fortuna to Quepos
Stop at Crocodile Bridge
Day 5
Manuel Antonio National Park
Drive to Playa Hermosa
Day 6
Covid tests in Jaco
Surfing Lessons
Beach and Pool
Day 7
Beach and Pool
Jaco for lunch and shopping
Day 8
Drive back to San Jose for last night before early morning flight home
Tips for Success
Costa Rica was a wonderful place to visit. We are certainly not the first family to travel here, and there is a plethora of information online about must-see sights, must-bring packing items, etc. I put together a list of tips that would have been helpful for me when preparing for the trip. Just some things that I hadn’t thought of in advance or maybe were not emphasized much in my trip research.
Packing – Some Useful Items
- Waterproof hiking backpacks
- Sun Protection (hats, sunglasses, sunscreen)
- Insect repellent
- Quick dry clothes (it is more comfortable to have clothes that can dry quick in the high temps and high humidity tropical environment)
- Rain jackets
- Binoculars (Scott and I didn’t use these much but they provided lots of entertainment for the kids)
- Quick dry towels (we kept one in a hiking backpack and it came in handy multiple times)
- Water shoes
- Waterproof phone case (we used this in the hot springs and the La Fortuna waterfall)
- Soft cooler
- Antibacterial wipes
- Medicine / first aid (Benadryl, kids Tylenol, cortisone cream, bandaids, Neosporin, cough medicine, decongestant, ibuprofen, Pepto-Bismol, Zyrtec, any prescriptions)
- Snacks from home (pantry staples to have on hand)
- Car charger / phone mount (useful for long drives)
Driving
If you read through our experiences in Costa Rica, then you will hear all about the difficulties we had with driving around the country. Nothing major, but if you are driving through the mountains, be prepared for very steep inclines and a lot of curvy roads. Our car was not 4WD, so we were extremely stressed about making it up some of the hills, and on top of that, we had to deal with some serious car sickness. Looking back, I don’t think I would have spent the extra cost on a 4WD car for our trip, but for someone going more off the beaten path, I’d say definitely go for all wheel drive.
Basic Spanish
It’s true that most people you will encounter in Costa Rica probably speak at least a little bit of English. However, we normally try to learn common phrases of the native language wherever we travel. In this case, Scott and I both already have some limited Spanish skills, but we thought it would be fun for the kids to learn some Spanish too. The kids were so proud to say Hola! and Adios! and Gracias! and use some limited phrases when ordering food. There were also a few times when we did need to speak Spanish to convey a food order or more effectively communicate with someone. So I’d at least make the effort to learn some basic Spanish. Many year ago we visited Italy, and I swear we would still be lost on a taxi ride in Rome if Scott didn’t know “right” and “left” in Italian, so you never know when it might come in handy.
Booking Accommodations
We used AirBnB for most of our accommodations, so these are just a few things we realized that we needed to watch for when searching. Not all places in Costa Rica have air conditioning, so we made sure that the places along the coast specified that they have a/c. We also made sure that security was emphasized in the descriptions because we knew some areas of the country could be unsafe for tourists. I want to follow that up with the fact that we NEVER felt unsafe during our trip, this was just out of an abundance of caution. Since we would be gone for for so long, we also looked for AirBnBs that had laundry available… we knew we’d have lots of dirty clothes on such a busy trip and didn’t want to over pack. Finally, we made sure that the views from the locations were gorgeous. While vacationing in such a scenic country, we wanted to be immersed in the beauty.
I’ve also written about more general AirBnB search tips here.
Set Expectations for the Kids
Something we could have done a little better in preparing for this trip was to set more realistic expectations for the kids in a couple areas. One area would have been talking about inactive vs active volcanos. We told them that we would get to see a volcano, and they were SUPER pumped about that. Like, this was the one thing they remembered talking about and would bring up even months before the trip. I should have thought a little deeper about this. I mean, a volcano pretty much looks like any other mountain. It’s not like it would be erupting and spewing lava and ash… ohhhh riiiight. They thought it would be literally erupting when we saw it. Yeah, that didn’t click for me until we were on the trip, and there was some disappointment to manage. Another area was regarding cuisine. We are from Texas where Tex-Mex is king, and chips and queso are a staple. Most of the places we eat out around home have chips and queso as an appetizer, so they loooove that when we go out to eat. We should have prepared them a little more that “chips and queso” in another country does not mean the same thing. I remember A sweetly asking one server “do you have chips and queso?” And of course he said yes… I mean, technically, they do have cheese and chips. She was so confused and sad when she got melted cheese on top of a tostada.
Because we had such an amazing trip, I have a TON to say about our experience! For anyone else planning a visit to Costa Rica, especially with youngsters like ours, I hope that our stories are helpful or maybe serve as inspiration to book that flight!
Costa Rica November 2021
Part 1 – La Paz and Blue Falls
Part 4 – Quepos and Manuel Antonio
Part 5 – Jaco and Playa Hermosa
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