Costa Rica eSIM

Take them on their own terms. The Pacific side gives you Manuel Antonio National Park, small and dense enough that sloths and monkeys are commonly seen from the trails, with sandy Playa Espadilla and the sheltered Biesanz cove, and Guanacaste further north for the Tamarindo surf, Playa Conchal and Playa Flamingo. The Caribbean around Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is quieter: Playa Cocles for surf, Punta Uva and Playa Chiquita coral-protected and better for swimming, plus Cahuita National Park and the black sand at Playa Negra. Calm water tips Caribbean; easy wildlife tips Pacific.

It can be, if you accept rain rather than plan around it. On the Pacific side and in the Central Valley the dry season runs December to April, and May to November is the green season, heaviest in September and October, when the parks and lodges are noticeably quieter. The Caribbean keeps a pattern of its own and is wetter year-round, yet it is relatively drier around September and October and again in February and March — the mirror image of the Pacific. Direct hurricane hits are rare because the country sits below the main belt, though rainy-season storms bring heavy rain and flooding.

Ten to fourteen is the figure most itineraries settle on, and the reason is driving time rather than distance. San José to La Fortuna is about 130 to 140 kilometres but three to three and a half hours; Monteverde is a comparable distance and no faster; Manuel Antonio is about 160 to 175 kilometres and again three to three and a half hours. At a week you are effectively choosing two bases. At two weeks you can take San José, a volcano, a cloud forest and one coast without repacking every night.

The known shortcut is the jeep–boat–jeep transfer between La Fortuna and Monteverde: a road leg to Lake Arenal, a boat across the water, then a road leg up the other side, about three to four hours in total and shorter than backtracking through the capital. From Monteverde you drop to the Pacific and run south to Manuel Antonio. Arrange the boat leg while you still have a signal in town, because the crossing itself is open water between two mountain roads and a poor place to be organising anything.

Both work; the question is which stretches you want to own. The Costanera highway down to Manuel Antonio is generally well paved. The Monteverde approach is steep, was gravel for years and is often fogged in, and the shorter San José to La Fortuna route skirting Lake Arenal is unpaved in sections. Shared shuttles cover exactly those legs and are the usual choice for travellers who would rather not drive them. A car earns its place if you want beaches away from the main towns. Either way, treat a fog-bound descent as offline time.

You look at it. Arenal has been dormant since 2010, and the cone is viewed rather than summited; what you walk instead are the lower trails, the Mistico Hanging Bridges and the path to La Fortuna Waterfall, with the hot-springs area and Lake Arenal filling out the rest of the day. That is genuinely the appeal — the cone stands behind almost everything around the town. Under cloud it disappears entirely, so the view is a matter of patience and of which morning you get.

Read the territory list on the offer first. A plan sold for Costa Rica should not be assumed to carry on once you cross into Panama or Nicaragua, and a border day is the worst moment to find that out. If the phone shows something you did not expect after a crossing, reopen the setup guide the plan came with, confirm the Costa Rica profile is still the chosen data line, then switch the line off and on once. If it will not settle, pass the order reference and the handset model to support rather than reinstalling repeatedly.