Costa Rica Touring Holidays Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best tours to Costa Rica?

Costa Rica is an enchanting country with animal welfare at its heart. A true nature lover’s paradise, located at the centre of the Americas, the tiny republic of Costa Rica boasts an array of amazing highlights such as its vast amount of smoking volcanoes, fog-shrouded rainforests, wildlife-rich national parks, glowing sandy beaches and exciting outdoor adventures.

The Best of Costa Rica is the only way to embrace nature in this ecologically-rich wonderland. You’ll experience breath-taking views of forests with incredible wildlife living freely, so look out for sloths, monkeys, crocodiles, Toucans, Butterflies and much more.

Take a journey by boat amongst jungle-canopied canals, trek around several national parks, view the Arenal Volcano, and explore the Monteverde Cloud Forest, home to the incredibly vocal howler monkey!

What are the highlights of Costa Rica?

Cost Rica has too many highlights to write about, but some of the ones you definitely won’t want to miss are:

Animal lovers won’t have to look very far to see exotic animals in the wild. Costa Rican’s love their wildlife and work tirelessly to make sure that nature thrives in their country. You’ll often see locals feeding and rescuing animals or open air breeding centres that allow the animals to release themselves back into the wild once they feel ready. There are over 500,000 animal species in costa Rica and 30 percent of the country is dedicated to national reserves where the animals thrive in the wild.

It's also a twitchers paradise, with the keel-billed toucan, great green macaw, fiery billed aracari, violet sabre wing and over 50 species of humming bird!

Sun-dwellers will love it’s pristine 800 miles of beaches, which just like it’s animal preservation, Costa Rican’s also care about the environment, so you’ll be hard fetched to find a messy beach!

If volcanoes are your thing then Cost Rica has 66! 60 are dormant/extinct but 6 are still active. The Arenal Volcano is one of Costa Rica’s most popular volcanoes especially for those who don’t mind a bit of a hike as it’s rough ground on the way to it.

Coffee – Don’t forget to enjoy a cup or 6 (as the locals do daily) and/or bring home some coffee – it’s well known that some of the best coffee is grown and harvested in this country.

What is the food like in Costa Rica?

The Food in Costa Rica is based mainly around the fresh exotic fruit and vegetables grown locally. A lot of these fruits you will have purchased from your local supermarket without realising where they have travelled from, for example: Pineapples, Melons and bananas. Rice and beans are a staple used in a lot of their dishes, and surprisingly for us brits, often used as a breakfast dish!

Costa Rican food is mild in nature, and flavour is added with exotic fruits rather than spices.

Dishes to try while in Costa Rica are:

• Casado – Casado means a marriage of foods. This is the traditional dish of Costa Rica and is a plate full of their favourite items. It includes; Meat or fish, fried plantain chips, rice, beans, salad and tortillas 
• Patacones – Fried plantain – if you’ve never tried plantain then you are in for a treat, this fruit of the banana family is often eaten as a savoury dish and used as we would potatoes. However it does have a sweetness to it akin to a banana. The closest comparison would possibly be a sweet potato
• Chifrijo – a snack of pork rinds, rice, tomatoes and tortilla chips
• Olla de Carne – Beef stew filled with vegetables such as plantain, taro root, corn on the cob, carrots and any other local vegetables available. A very filling dish
• Sopa Negra (Black bean soup) – A great dish for vegetarians – ingredients include, black beans, onions, tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and some mild spices along with boiled egg
• Tamal – different to the Mexican Tamal, this one is much milder and has a garlic twist to it.
• Arroz con Leche (Rice pudding) and Flan are both popular desserts for the Costa Ricans

Greetings in Costa Rica

The Costa Rican’s famous motto is “pura vida” which translates to “pure life” or as we might translate it to “living my best life”. As mentioned before the Costa Ricans really believe in making everyone and everything thrive and “live their best life”, whether this be people, animals or plant life. They live by this mantra and this probably explains why Costa Rica has been labelled as one of the happiest countries.

The phrase is commonly used as a greeting (I’m living my best life) to which you also respond Pura Vida (meaning so am I!)