Costa Rica is a beautiful an interesting country to visit and to have a very nice vacations however as every country in the world has its own problems and features that have to be taken into account if you want to avoid any kind of problems. There are son tips that you can use to enjoy your stay in the country. The way of life for Costa Ricans tend to be more relaxed than the U.S. or European countries, be patient if things last longer than in your home country.

The road infrastructure (the conditions of the road and traffic signals) in Costa Rica is not very developed, be patient when traveling within the country because sometimes can be dangerous by the bad conditions of the roads. Generally the cars do not give space to other cars or pedestrian, for that reason be careful when crossing streets or when you are driving.

If you are in the streets wear conservative. Foreigners often receive more attention than desired, for that reason in some occasions attracts the attention of criminals like thieves. Do not forget to ask what the food the food has when you are eating in some restaurant. The majority of the restaurants and locals are clean but is better to be sure.

If you are in the beach do not leave things unattended on the beach while swimming. On the beach, discover which parts of the coast are safe and which are not. If you feel that you are pushed by the sea, stay calm, do not try to swim directly to shore, instead, swim parallel to the shore where the waves break and let them help you get you back to the beach.

Wherever you are always carry a photocopy of your passport, showing your photograph and the date you entered the country. Leave the original in the safe of your hotel. Is important to keep your airline ticket, important documents, cash and travelers checks in the safe of the hotel. Is a good idea to type the numbers of your traveler checks in a separate place.

It is very important that you always change your money in a bank or in your hotel, but never on the street, can be dangerous. Do not use valuable jewelry and carry only the amount of money you need for each day.

Under any circumstances do not give money to traffic police or other police officers. The taxis in Costa Rica are red with the license number painted on the center of a yellow triangle on both doors. The taxis in the airport are always orange. If you go out at night, ask the hotel receptionist to call you a taxi.

Inside the National Parks follow the security measures set within the Park, explore the trails in groups of two or more and not touch any plant or try to touch the animals. Please make an effort to cause a minimal negative impact on the natural environment and human that you find, is a good way to conserve the natural resources of the country.

Buy coffee. Even if you are not a coffee drinker, it is very likely that if someone who knows what it is and coffee is the best buy of Costa Rica.

One of the more developed tourist areas in Costa Rica is the Central Pacific that has beautiful beaches and National Parks with a rich diversity of flora and fauna. Because of this, this area has great deluxe hotels equipped with all amenities to make your stay a memorable occasion. Among the many activities that can be enjoyed in the Central Pacific there is the practice of professional golf in fields located in some of the most beautiful hotels in Costa Rica. The design of these golf courses and its proximity to beaches and tropical forests will make the practice of this sport in Costa Rica, a memorable experience.
Situated along a lush forest with a sea view of the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, the golf courses that are located in these scenarios provide an extraordinary encounter with nature for any golfer, is an excellent opportunity to test your abilities in golf, a hole after another. It is a unique golfing experience that will impress you while playing.

One of these fields is The Iguana Golf Course. It is surrounded by lush tropical forests and surrounded by a peaceful and isolated cove, the golf course in Los Sueños (6,707 yards) is a great creation of Ted Robinson Jr., making a perfect contrast with the natural beauty and challenging golf. This field championship 18-hole is designed to include exotic plants, trees and wildlife. In this context, “naturally challenging”, the typical cadi has been replaced by a “golf guide,” which has taken months of extensive training, including daily classes with a local biologist. Inside the hotel are available to rent equipment (clubs and golf shoes). The exceptional golf course with 18 holes of Dreams Marriott, is only 10 minutes by car from Punta Leona, a famous tourist place in Costa Rica. This field is located within the Forest in the Los Sueños Marriott Beach and Golf Complex.

Another spectacular golf course is located near Manuel Antonio and next to an exotic tropical jungle with stunning sea views. This golf course 18-hole, par-72 is suitable for a championship game and provides not only a challenge but also a memorable experience. It was designed also by the famous Ted Robinson and offers the possibility to enjoy a natural environment to live with the monkeys and seeing the beautiful red macaws flying freely. This golf course has highly experienced guides who will be fully prepared to guide you through this professional field. The design of the field will allow you to enjoy a challenge worthy of the best players of this interesting sport, for this reason you should not lose the opportunity to play golf in this place. The golf in the Central Pacific is an interesting option for those who want to spend their vacation in this beautiful zone in Costa Rica.

Known for its wild beauty and exotic beaches, the South Puntarenas in Costa Rica is a wonderful way to escape from the noise and the stress of daily life. The scenery is really great and offer tourists a refuge unmatched in the midst of the most spectacular surroundings with an incredible flora and fauna.

A place where nature reigns, the south Pacific is like no other place in Costa Rica. The area is not as intensly developed so there is a lot of natural rain forest all throughout the province, you’ll see green all around. The accommodations are mostly ecological friendly as the majority of the hotels, resorts, cabins and villas offer a variety of activities to enjoy nature. If you are in search of golf on your vacation, this is not the place because it will be hard to find golf courses in Costa Rica down in the south pacific. This is because most of the land in the south of Costa Rica belongs to a national park or wilderness reserve. There are many plans to develop a golf course in this region for upcoming years, though plans are still far away. However if you want you can go to the luxurios hotels and resorts located to the north where you can find world class golf courses, mainly in Guanacaste.

Meanwhile you can enjoy your visit to this area by taking one of the many interesting tours offered in the area; there are many things to do if you love the nature. For example if what you like is a place like Golfito there are many good hotels where you can spend your vacations. Golfito is the perfect place to escape for the routine of the daily life, from there you can go to amazing places like Drake Bay of Corcovado. But if you need to play golf because you are a lover of this sport you can take a tour that will take to the best golf courses in Costa Rica.

While most tourists visit Guanacaste in Costa Rica because of its spectacular weather and great beaches and biological reserves, now there are many people who come to this place in search of golf courses located in first class resorts and hotels offered in this province. As golf becomes more popular around the globe, the province of Guanacaste also been hit by the fever of golf and some of the best golf courses in Costa Rica are in this place, many of them still under development and created for some of the best golf courses designers.

Located along the beach of Guanacaste these golf resorts offer incredible vistas of the ocean and world class facilities. Playing in these places is really a unique experience for the avid golfer, because the greens and fields are always in perfect condition with a great design and marvelous panorama. And in case you get tired of golf, you can also take a tour along the Pacific coast since the beach is only few meters away.

One of the best golf resorts in the area is located a few miles from the town of Tamarindo (a very famous tourist site) near the small village of San Jose de Pinilla. This golf course of 7500 yardas, 72 pares and18 holes is world class and is surrounded by beautiful forests and grasslands typical of the Costa Rican Pacific. This golf course is considered one of the best in the country and the costs of use can be as high as $ 125 per person in high season and golf carts for $ 20USD for each day. A championship golf course green, this place was certified by the Audubon Society, which is responsible for the conservation of natural ecosystems found in Costa Rica.

Another of the best golf courses in the north pacific province of Costa Rica, known as Guanacaste, is Garra de Leon located in the incredible Playa Conchal, in a luxurios resort. It is an 18-hole golf course with 72 pairs and7037 yards, Garra de Leon was designed by the renowned architect Robert Trent Jones III. This field is the only Olympic field located directly on the seashore; for its design and its location this golf course is undoubtedly spectacular.

There are others excellent golf courses in the North Pacific of Costa Rica like the course in the The Four Seasons Resort in Papagayo Gulf, the Royal Pacific Golf and Country Club in Playa Grande, the Tamarindo Diria Beach and Golf Resort in Tamarindo and the Costa Palmera Beach Estate in Playa Grande are also popular golf destinations in the province. The practice of the golf in these places can exceed the expectations of the professional players of this sport.

In Costa Rica, through all the country there is the possibility to enjoy horseback riding, an excellent opportunity to enjoy your vacation. You have the possibility to choose between excursions on horseback in the morning to return at the hotel for lunch to a full day expeditions in the rainy forests, mountains, volcanoes or beaches to enjoy an interesting travel.

The horseback riding on the beaches of Costa Rica can be made throughout the year and of course in almost any beach in the country, from the beaches of the Pacific to the coastal areas of the Caribbean. It’s essential to take into account that the activity takes place in areas adjacent to where you are and do not need any experience to practice this fun journey. The main objective of this exercise is to observe the nature in a relaxed and calm way, through which you can meet the most beautiful points for each beach, its flora and fauna and its natural environments.

To practice this beautiful activity, there are many options, both on the beach and in the mountains, from calm and relaxed riding at dusk to interesting riding’s crossing primary forests, mountains and rivers, from one place to another. The beaches of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica enjoy a spectacular beauty thanks to the nature that surrounds them. For that reason one of the most interesting experiences is to travel them on the back of a horse.

Basically the tours will collect you in your hotel and will take you to the beaches which are generally located quite close. For example in Guanacaste you can explore the beautiful beaches of the Costa Dorada of Costa Rica that are among the most beautiful in the world, for example, you can see one of the most famous beaches of Costa Rica, Playa Carrillo with its white sand and its row of palm trees, a perfect place to be explored riding a horse. If you have experience and you are a lover of horses, there are excursions from 4 to 6 hours, with lunch in the countryside, passing through fields, rivers and much more.

In Manuel Antonio in the Central Pacific of Costa Rica you can enjoy horseback riding tours truly spectacular that will allow you to enjoy a quiet stroll on the beach at sunset. Enjoy learning about the exotic plants and rare fauna of Costa Rica during the trip through the jungle and tropical ecological reserve Tocori, just a few minutes from Manuel Antonio National Park. After a relaxing time to ride a horse through the tropical rainforest, leaving the horse on the road, your guide will take you through exotic plants and animal life on a nature trail. After that, you can take a refreshing dip in the crystalline natural mountain waters of two of the impressive Falls of Tocori. You can also enjoy fresh local fruit and tropical homemade sandwiches, home-made.

In the South Pacific of Costa Rica you can enjoy a horseback riding tour that will take you from the beautiful beaches of the area to the rainforests where you can enjoy beautiful rivers equipped with cataracts. Generally the tours offer half-day excursions to one of the white sand beaches where red macaws and other animals that are easily spotted.

Santa Teresa Beach in Costa Rica is located in the province of Puntarenas, in the canton of Puntarenas, 12 kilometers southwest of the town of Cobano. A secluded and private beach, Playa Santa Teresa is in the middle of the Pacific Coast and it is at only 150 kilometers west of the capital San Jose. Due to its location, the quickest way to get to Playa Santa Teresa is by taking a ferry from Paquera. You can also take a domestic flight from the Juan Santa Maria International Airport near San Jose to Tambor, on a flight about 25 minutes of duration. From there you can take a bus or taxi to Santa Teresa in a little journey of less than one hour.

Santa Teresa is bordered on the south by the Rock of Arios and Carmen beach on the north, both ends are rocky. The sand of this beach is gray and its waves are moderate to strong, making it a perfect place for the surfing. From Santa Teresa beach you can observe the beautiful landscape of the Cabo Blanco Absolute Reserve.

Santa Teresa shares with its neighbor in Costa Rica, the beach of Malpais the qualification of being one of the best beaches for surfing across the Nicoya Peninsula. If you just see the lot of tourists traveling through its paths you could understand that Santa Teresa is becoming a very popular place. Luckily the road is behind the properties that are facing the sea, giving a great intimacy to the beaches and hotels, bars and restaurants that have been built there, which are widely recommended as they have managed to integrate the natural conditions of the beach with the most simple as with the most sophisticated conforts.

The people will enjoy surfing one of the best and constant waves of Costa Rica. The miles of empty spaces at the beach can give the opportunity to choose the perfect place for practicing the sport. Santa Teresa is located in the middle of the Central Pacific of Costa Rica, which means that is near the beaches that are located south of the province of Puntarenas, as well as the areas located north of the province Guanacaste, for example the Gulf of Papagayo that is one of the most famous tourist sites in Costa Rica. Another big advantage of Santa Teresa is the complete absence of crowds in the area.

In addition to the countless opportunities for surfing on the beach in Costa Rica, there are other activities that can be enjoyed such as horseback riding, hiking tours and canopy. If you prefer, you can spend the day slowly taking a sunbath on the beach. Santa Teresa also has about a large variety of tropical vegetation that will allow you to explore the diversity of wildlife in Costa Rica.

The Lomas Barbudal Reserve in Costa Rica is more known as the park of insects, because of its immense variety of insects that are here, more than 240 species of bees and 60 species of moths have been classified in the vicinity of the park. It is located 219 kilometers from San Jose and has an area of 2279 hectares.

This reserve protects interesting examples of tropical dry forest, with some patches of evergreen rain forest and riparian forest. It is possible to find endangered species, such as the Caoba and the Secoya.

Inside the park there are several natural pools formed by the rivers where you can find some species of fish, for that reason the visitors are advised to bring a mask and snorkel to enjoy the submarine view. This oasis of marine life is located at 300 meters upstream from the visitors’ entrance.

On this reserve lives several species of very beautiful birds, such as the Trogon and the Elegant Trogon, mammals such as deer, white-face monkeys, howler and congos monkeys and a large number of reptiles.

This wild area is located on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica in the province of Puntarenas. It is located about 157km south of the city of San Jose and 7km south of the town of Quepos, between Damas and Matapalo. It was established on November 15, 1972 with an area of 683 hectares on the land and 55,000 hectares at the marine area. The region where this national park is located was populated by Indians Quepoa, a name that gave rise to the city of Quepos. With the arrival of settlers, the land became a field of crops that were later acquired by the United Fruit Company.

The area that now forms the park was acquired by foreigners who prevented access to the locals, at the very moment that were being developed rural areas for tourism, however, the lack of planning and expansion threatened many natural sanctuaries . This situation causes the integration of a committee for the formation of a national park, which persuaded the local and national authorities for the declaration of these lands, by decree, a biological protected area.

Manuel Antonio is one of the most famous tourist destinations of Costa Rica, although is among the smaller national parks, is also among the most visited, thanks to its easy access and diversity in ecosystems. Manuel Antonio National Park is located in a zone of very wet tropical forest life. It protect patches of primary forest, secondary forest, mangrove, beach vegetation, marine environments, islands and a lagoon of 14 hectares. The most characteristic species of flora within the primary forest are the Guácimo colorado, the Pilon, the Cedro Maria, the white guapinol, the sura, the black guapinol a timber tree in danger of extintion, the Lechoso, the Cenízaro and the Ceiba.

The mangrove covering approximately 18 hectares consists of three species, red mangrove, white mangrove and black mangrove. Among the vegetation on the beach highlights the Manzanillo, a tree that has a milky substance and poisonous fruits, the almond, the savanna oak and coconuts.

Among the most outstanding wildlife, we can found the raccoon, the pizote (coatimundis), the guatuza, the sloth of two fingers, the white face monkey, cats of considerable size and the monkey marmosets, a sub specie endemic to the park, which is in danger of extinction due to habitat destruction and their use as a pet. In the area is frequent to observe species of birds such as the tucancillo, the pelican or “buchón”, the Guaco, the fisherman hawk, the green kingfisher and the chirin coca. It is possible to see iguanas, snakes and countless insects. There is also a very rich marine life as eels, manta rays, angel fish, sea urchins and sea stars.

The city of San Jose is the capital of the Republic of Costa Rica as well of the province of San Jose. The city is the political and economic center of the country, collecting more than half of the trade and services from it. Can be considered culturally almost entirely influenced by the European culture because the Spanish immigration after its discovery by Christopher Columbus. This can be seen in the distribution of the town that grew around the current cathedral and later in the architecture of theaters, museums and houses of the inhabitants of the city center. San Jose receives this name in honor of Joseph of Nazareth.

Like others old cities of the country, of San Jose was founded on December 7, 1848. The town was born around 1737-1738, and has been the capital of Costa Rica on three occasions: in 1822, 1823 to 1834 and from 1838 to the present. This is a city with an interesting mix of history and modernity, although the central area is uninhabited and almost becomes a place of passage that brings together during the day to more than one million people, creating chaos and increasing levels of pollution and traffic problems. Despite its problems, according to studies in the field throughout Latin America, San Jose remains one of the safest cities and least violent of all Central America. In 2006 it was appointed as the Ibero-American Capital of Culture.

The territory occupied by San Jose is formed in the present day by a flat terrain with minor undulations, fertile, surrounded by mountains, streams and rivers that travel from east to west. The city sits in the heart of the so-called Central Valley to an average height of 1170 meters above sea level. The temperatures are mild, between 18 and 22 ° C. The rainy season, like the rest of the country is from May to November and precipitation accumulated over the year is around 2000 mm.
The city of San Jose has an area of 44.6 square kilometers. It is located in the northern province of the same name, limiting the north by the province of Heredia (specifically with the regions of Belen, Heredia and Santo Domingo), as well as with the regions of Tibás and Goicoechea; with Montes de Oca and Curridabat east, and with Desamparados, Alajuelita Escazú and south.

The city has several theaters and auditoriums among the most prominent: the National Theater, the Melico Salazar Theate, the National Auditorium of the Museum of Children, as well as other smaller theaters like Lucho Barahona, the Harlequin, and so on. The city also has several museums as the Museum of Children, the National Museum, the Museo de Oro, the Jade Museum, located in the INS, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Among the attractions of San Jose, highlighting the many parks located in the city, including the National Park, the Morazan (where is located the Temple of Music), Central Park, the Peace Park or the Park Okayama among others. In the city there are also some major avenues, such as Central Avenue, the most important pedestrian route from the city.
Other interesting places in San Jose are the zoo Simón Bolívar, the Parque Nacional de Diversiones and a host of historic buildings like the Post Office building of Costa Rica, the former Soda Palace, the Casa Amarilla, the National Museum (Old Barracks Bellavista), the National Library Miguel Obregon Lizano and the church of La Merced.

San Jose became in March 2008 in a beautiful artistic place for 120 cows. For the first time in Central America, the successful international Cow Parade exhibition came to the capital of Costa Rica, reflecting the interesting cultural development.
The Cow Parade is an exhibition of fiberglass cows painted by artists and craftsmen. This activity was born in 1998 in Zurich with the aim of promoting the producers of milk and beef farmers and had such success that has been done in Mexico, France, Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary, the United States and Argentina, among other countries.
The Municipality of San Jose brings renowned exhibition to this country.
Subsequently, the artistic cows were auctioned and is expected to be located in different parts of the city.