Touch down in San José, gateway to Costa Rica’s volcanoes, cloud forests and Pacific beaches. After clearing immigration and collecting your bags, meet your pre-arranged driver in the arrivals hall for a smooth transfer to your hotel. Check in, freshen up and take today at an easy pace—this is a gentle start to your Costa Rica holiday.

If energy allows, enjoy a relaxed orientation walk: admire the neoclassical Teatro Nacional on Plaza de la Cultura, browse the bustling Mercado Central for coffee and artisan treats, and dip into the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum or the Jade Museum for a quick culture fix. Leafy Barrio Amón offers handsome wooden mansions and cafés perfect for an unhurried brew of single-origin Costa Rican coffee.

As evening settles over the Central Valley, city lights flicker against distant volcanic silhouettes. Rest well—tomorrow the road curves towards rainforest and volcano country.

An early start takes you northeast from San José across the emerald folds of Braulio Carrillo National Park—cloud forest draped in bromeliads, waterfalls flashing between ravines—before descending to the lowlands of Limón Province. After a hearty Tico breakfast en route, continue past banana plantations to the river dock, where you board a covered boat and slip into the quiet labyrinth of Tortuguero’s canals. Herons lift from lilies, caiman bask on mud banks, and howler monkeys roll a deep dawn chorus through the canopy.

On arrival, check into your jungle lodge nestled between rainforest and the Caribbean Sea. After lunch, ease into the rhythm of Tortuguero—walk shaded garden trails with your naturalist, watch toucan pairs trade perches, and spot basilisk lizards sprinting across water like green comets. Later, a guided canal excursion (time/weather permitting) explores narrow creeks where sloths curl in cecropias and poison-dart frogs flash colour at the forest’s edge.

As evening gathers, the canals mirror a sky of molten copper and the rainforest hums to life. Swing in a hammock, sip a cool refresco, and listen—the Caribbean jungle is telling its first stories.

Wake before sunrise to the jungle’s soft crescendo—howler monkeys rolling thunder from the canopy and herons arrowing low over mirror-still water. Slip into a low-draft boat with your naturalist and glide along Tortuguero’s canals, where the forest leans in close. In the pearly light, watch anhingas dry wings, kingfishers blitz the surface, and sloths curl like commas in cecropia crowns. Along mud banks, caiman and basilisk lizards hold statuesque, while jacanas tiptoe across floating lilies.

Return for breakfast at the lodge, then join a guided village walk in Tortuguero. Colourful stilted houses line sandy paths; reggae notes float from doorways; artisans carve coconut-shell jewellery. Visit the Sea Turtle Conservancy centre (time permitting) to learn about the beaches that make this coast world-famous for nesting.

This afternoon, venture on a shaded rainforest trail or a second, narrower canal excursion to explore backwaters where poison-dart frogs flash electric colour and iguana tails stripe the branches. If seas are calm, a guided beach walk reveals pelican squadrons patrolling the surf and the lacework of tiny ghost-crab tracks stitching the sand.

As dusk pours gold into the canals, the jungle’s chorus swells—tree frogs ping, cicadas trill, and a breeze moves the palms like surf. Swing in a hammock with a cool refresco; nighttime in Tortuguero is a galaxy of sounds beneath a sky littered with stars.

Bid farewell to the canals of Tortuguero as you board a morning boat through mirrored waterways to the river dock. From here, a road transfer carries you west, climbing from the Caribbean lowlands to the fertile San Carlos plains. After a simple Tico lunch en route, watch the landscape shift to pastureland, pineapple and yuca farms, with toucans occasionally hopping along fence lines. By mid-afternoon, you arrive in Muelle San Carlos, gateway to the Arenal region, where the volcano’s elegant cone often floats above the hills like a charcoal sketch.

Settle into your Arenal-area hotel and breathe in the cooler air. If energy allows, stretch your legs on a short rainforest trail near the property, or visit a local cacao/coffee farm for an easy-going tasting. Come evening, sink into naturally heated hot springs (optional) while the forest hums—an effortless way to ease travel from coast to volcano country.

Night settles softly over the plains; tree frogs ping from garden ponds and the silhouette of Arenal Volcano fades to ink. Tomorrow, explore bridges, lava trails and rainforest life beneath the cone.

Ease into the rhythm of Muelle San Carlos (Arenal) with a morning at the Místico Hanging Bridges. Walk steel-stable spans high in the canopy as howler monkeys roll their dawn call and oropendolas stitch the air with liquid notes. Your naturalist points out leaf-cutter ants, two-toed sloths and epiphytes like tiny green galaxies. Late morning, descend to the jungle plunge-pool of the La Fortuna Waterfall (steps down, steady pace). Swim beneath mist and gauzy spray or simply watch sun-diamonds dance on the pool.

After a restful afternoon, sink into naturally heated hot springs fringed by heliconias. Sip a cool refresco while the forest hums—the perfect Arenal welcome.

Start early on the Arenal Volcano National Park circuits: lava flows from historic eruptions, cecropia and guarumo reclaiming black rock, and lookout points where (clouds permitting) the perfect cone floats against a cobalt sky. Listen for the metallic call of toucanets and catch hummingbirds needling flowers along the edge of old lava.

Return via lava fields skirting secondary rainforest; after lunch, relax by the pool or book a chocolate & coffee tour to trace the bean-to-bar ritual with tastings.

Switch to a slower lens this morning on the dedicated Sloth trail around La Fortuna’s edges. With patient eyes (and your guide’s scope) you’ll find both two-toed and three-toed sloths, plus motmots, green iguanas and the occasional eyelash viper coiled on a leaf. Choose your afternoon tempo: a paddle safari on the quiet Peñas Blancas River (great for kingfishers, herons and monkeys) or a longer wetland adventure to Caño Negro (seasonal water levels, outstanding birdlife).

At dusk, consider a guided night walk in secondary forest: red-eyed tree frogs on bromeliads, glass frogs shimmering like jade, and a chorus of crickets under a moonlit canopy.

Keep today open for your kind of Arenal. Linger over a long breakfast, then choose between hot springs day passes, a waterfall canyoning session, horse riding to countryside viewpoints, or a scenic e-bike loop with volcano panoramas. Foodies can dive into a farm-to-table cooking class featuring plantain, yuca and fresh tilapia.

As evening falls, clouds lift and the volcano’s outline returns—a perfect sign-off to four unhurried days beneath Arenal’s near-perfect cone.

Bid farewell to Arenal’s emerald slopes as you set out southwest towards the Pacific lowlands. The road climbs past San Ramón and rolls down through coffee country to the coastal plain, where heat shimmers and royal palms march to the horizon. Pause at roadside fruit stands for chilled coconut or sweet pineapple, then continue to Tárcoles, gateway to the river’s famed American crocodiles and the bird-rich forests of Carara National Park.

After settling at your lodge near the river or coast, choose an easy-paced introduction to the area. Join a late-day Tárcoles River safari in a covered boat—prime time for scarlet macaws commuting to roost, herons and kingfishers working the banks, and the unmistakable armour of crocodiles basking on sandbars. Alternatively, head into Carara’s edge trails to watch the forest tip from dry to humid as dusk colours the canopy, or drive to the famous Tárcoles bridge viewpoint for a safe, brief look downriver.

As the sun slides into the Pacific, the sky turns copper over the mangroves and the river slows to glass. Toast your first evening on the coast with a cool drink and the rattle-call of macaws overhead—tomorrow, the forest and estuary reveal their secrets in full daylight.

Ease into the Pacific pace. Linger over breakfast beneath swaying palms, then claim a shady cabana by the pool or stroll the Tárcoles shoreline at low tide. If you fancy a gentle outing, pop to the river bridge for a quick look at American crocodiles from the designated viewpoint, then return for an unhurried lunch and an afternoon siesta. Sunset paints the mangroves gold—perfect for a quiet drink and the rattle-call of scarlet macaws overhead.

Keep today deliciously open. Start with a beach walk and shell-spotting, read by the pool, or book a soothing spa treatment (optional). For a light dose of nature without rush, wander a nearby garden trail to watch iguanas sunning and hummingbirds threading hibiscus. Savour fresh seafood at a local soda and let the afternoon drift by to the sound of surf and breeze in the almond trees.

One more unhurried day to soak up coastal calm. Sleep late, then float between pool dips and pages; or, if energy stirs, take a short, easy sunset promenade along the estuary path to watch egrets and herons settle to roost. Dine al fresco as the sky turns copper and the Pacific exhales—an effortless, restorative finale to your time in Tárcoles.

After a last unhurried Pacific morning in Tárcoles, you’ll travel back inland to the Central Valley and San José. As palms give way to coffee slopes and cloud-fringed ridgelines, the air turns cooler and the cityscape gathers—an easy transition from coast to capital for your final night or outbound flight.

If staying overnight, enjoy a final wander downtown—Teatro Nacional, Plaza de la Cultura and the lively Mercado Central for last sips of single-origin coffee and artisan chocolate. If flying this evening, proceed to Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) in good time for formalities.

Your Costa Rican adventure concludes in the cool air of the Central Valley. Depending on flight time, enjoy a last slow coffee or a short stroll before your private transfer to Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO). As the city slips by—coffee slopes, volcanic silhouettes and plane tails in the distance—memories of canals, cloud forest and Pacific sunsets gather into a final, golden reel.