Costa Rica on a Shoestring Budget

So, my friend and I planned to travel around Costa Rica once she’d finished her PhD. This was due to happen in 2020, and we all know what happened then! Fast-forward to 2022 and we’d finally booked everything and headed out to gorgeous Costa Rica.

We’d managed to secure some pretty great cheap(ish) flights out there and we’d done an itinerary going from hostel to hostel via the local bus network. It’s super affordable and there is tons of information about using it, so with our limited time and budget, it was a no-brainer.

As both of us have full-time jobs, we only had 15 days to explore. That’s not actually a lot when you consider how much there is to see and do in Costa Rica. After a long planning session with a lot of cheese and wine, we came up with this schedule:

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• San Jose (1 day)
• La Fortuna (3 days)
• Monteverde (4 days)
• Manuel Antonio (4 days)
• Uvita (2 days)
• San Jose (1 day)

In hindsight, this was a lot of time on the road, and by the end of the trip, both of us felt like we needed a relaxing holiday to recover from this one…

Okay, so budget-wise what did this trip look like? I’ll break it down

Flights

I love a cheap flight, it’s my favourite thing. I’ve also got a frequent flyer account with one particular group of airlines, so if the price and route difference isn’t too bad, I’ll normally opt for that group and get the points on top. We knew we were traveling in June, as it’s the break in the rainy season. We couldn’t really get the time off in the peak season, and it gets so hot, and neither of us could deal with that.

With that being the case, we started scoping out prices before Christmas to see what the real prices were before the festive and New Year “deals” hit. A lot of the time, they’re not actually cheaper than if you wait it out. We’d seen a few good prices and flights on deal sites like Going.com – all of which without luggage, of course – but we knew we could push it down further.

The flights we were seeing had one change from Manchester to San Jose, via Paris, with a maximum of a four-hour layover, with AirFrance (part of my frequent flyer group). With the times of the flights, we knew we wanted these flights, but they were up around £500 return. The lowest we’d seen them before on the Google Flights price tracker was around £440, so when we waited it out, saw it dropping, and managed to get that price with luggage we were pretty stoked. A combination of prior research and Google Alerts meant we could keep the price down. We had a realistic number in our head and as soon as it hit it, we bought.

Accommodation

Honestly, this is where multi-stay trips tend to add up. You never get the week-long stay discounts if you’re jumping from one place to the next. Initially, we’d planned to dorm it the whole way around, but now we were a couple of years older and fancied a couple of privates along the way to treat ourselves. For this, Hostelworld was a life-saver.

Like with the flights, we made a pricing rule: if the price for two beds in a dorm per night was within £10 (£5 each) of a private room, we’d bump up for a private room. I’m so glad we did this. I still love hosteling, but it was nice to be able to come back and just chill if the downpours came or if we had an early bus the next day.

We stayed in dorm rooms in San Jose, Manuel Antonio, and Uvita, mostly due to cost and availability. San Jose, we knew we’d just be crashing and going back to the bus terminal so we weren’t too fussed about private rooms. In Manuel Antonio and Uvita, as they’re popular coastal towns, the prices were more expensive for privates and we stayed in four-person dorms, so really it was 50% our room anyway.

Having a private room in La Fortuna was more for us to get used to being in Costa Rica and fully adjusting. Honestly, we were so tired in San Jose that we barely registered anything. After the first bus ride, we both needed a private shower, to get our stuff organised, and start adventuring.

We opted for a private in Monteverde mainly because the place had the most amazing deck that opened up with views over the Cloud Forest. Obviously in June, it was a lot mistier and grey, so we only got glimpses, but again it gave us time to prepare ourselves for the second week.

All in all, our accommodation for two weeks – which included breakfast at every stop – came to around $250 each.

Transport

Okay, so let’s talk logistics. As my friend cannot drive and there was no way I was driving all around Costa Rica, especially in the rainy season around Monteverde, we opted for the public transport network. With the amount of tourism in Costa Rica, it’s probably the easiest way to get around, and definitely the most affordable way.

The transport network and timings largely influenced our itinerary. We did want to go out to the peninsula, but with the amount of time it takes to get out there and back to San Jose to fly back, it wasn’t really viable on this trip. We also didn’t want to have to go back through San Jose all the time.

So, we got a bus out of San Jose to La Fortuna which was pretty straightforward and took 2-3 hours. For the next leg, we pre-booked a taxi-boat-taxi company via Viator. Otherwise, we’d have to spend 5-6 hours going back into San Jose and back out the Monteverde. This cost around $25 and was definitely the right choice and included hotel pick-up and drop-off.

Monteverde to Manuel Antonio was our longest leg and started with a 5am bus to Puntarenas where we were supposed to change onto our second bus down to Quepos (the closest town on the main route to Manuel Antonio). It was supposed to take 5-6 hours, but we took a rest stop before Puntarenas and the driver flagged the bus going south to Quepos and we managed to change buses earlier, on a random crossroads, saving us an hour of bus time.

After that, it was an hour and a half, straight down the coast from Quepos to Uvita. Finally, Uvita to San Jose took another 2-3 hours. All in all, our buses cost around $30 for the whole trip, including the bus back to the airport in San Jose.

Excursions

So, even though we were on a budget, it didn’t mean that we weren’t going to enjoy ourselves. We knew it would be cheaper to book a lot of our trips out there either through the hostel or directly at the place, but we still checked the prices online in advance to make sure we weren’t getting ripped off. Besides, if we were quoted something completely different, we could always book online with our phones.

We chose our hostel in La Fortuna because it included free daily trips to the local hot springs. If you can get accommodation that throws in stuff like this, it’s a huge boost. The next day, we headed up to La Fortuna waterfall. There are organised excursions that go up there, but looking at the map, we reckoned we could easily hike it. We’re from England. It was 28 degrees celsius with 85% humidity. Uphill. It was a horrible idea, but it did make swimming in that waterfall so much nicer afterwards! We just paid entry when we got there and got a student rate. Make sure you show your ID and ask every time – you never know!

In Monteverde, we definitely wanted to go to the Cloud Forest. It was the main reason for going there and we jumped on the local bus up there rather than paying for hotel shuttles and private transport. I also wanted to zipline, but with all the mist and overcast conditions, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything, so we gave it a miss. Instead, we headed to a local brewery on the outskirts of town, Monteverde Brewing Company, which was fantastic!

Manuel Antonio was all about the national park and the beaches. We went to one of the free, local beaches the first day we were there and headed into the national park on the next day. We booked tickets online the night before with a designated slot, but once you’re in, you can stay as long as you like. It has one of the best beaches I’ve ever been on. Just beautiful. On the way to Manuel Antonio, I opted to go on this short but fun forest zipline rollercoaster to make up for Monteverde. It was only like $15 but it was worth it!

We also went kayaking in the Mangroves around Manuel Antonio. Due to availability, we booked this before we left the UK on Viator. It was a full morning and ended up being a private tour with just me, my friend, and an awesome local guide. We paddled around the mangroves, meeting monkeys, birds, snakes, and other animals. Honestly, one of the coolest things we did out there and it came with lunch, pick-up, and drop-off. It did cost £45 per person, but we didn’t splurge a lot on this trip.

We only went to Uvita to go whale watching. Now, given that we ended up traveling in early June, we were too early for the main season, but we still went out on a boat tour, learning about the area, the wildlife, and the history of the town. It was sad not to see any whales, but a giant turtle did come right up to our boat and we chilled out by a giant bird colony. We also booked this before we left as we were only in Uvita for a limited time.

Food and Drink

Okay, now onto the important stuff. My friend is Coeliac, so the vast majority of restaurant choices were down to her. Luckily Costa Rica has so many different rice dishes, it’s kind of insane. We stuck to smaller restaurants, eating a ton of Casado (rice, beans, plantain, and fish), fresh seafood on the coast, and a load of amazing corn tacos.

Wine is expensive in Costa Rica. Well, comparatively to everything else. Most of the time, I’d drink Imperial, a local lager, unless the Monteverde ales were on the menu. They were amazing and I wish they exported more! Cocktails are largely affordable and in the tourist areas there are always deals. If you can, try a Guano Sour. They’re so good and specific to Costa Rica. I haven’t traveled in South or Central America apart from this, but others have said Costa Rica is a lot more expensive for food and drink, so if you’re traveling the continent keep this in mind.

You can get “Western” food pretty easily in all the places we visited, but you will pay a premium. It’s better to stick to local joints. We treated ourselves to a cool bar and restaurant in a crashed airplane setting in Manuel Antonio called El Avion. Go at sunset like we did and get spectacular views across the Pacific Ocean.

Miscellaneous Tips

Okay, so a few things to note, based on our experience:

• Do not listen to people outside San Jose bus stations. Someone tried to tell us we missed the only bus of the day and that – for a fee – he could drive us to the next town to catch the bus up. We were 98% sure we were right with our timings because we’d scoped out the bus station and asked about times the day before. As soon as we said we were checking inside, he gave up.
• There are multiple bus stations in each major city. Different bus companies operate from different places, so make sure you know which one you need to go to. You also need to factor this in if you’re switching buses – you may need to run across town.
• Book your national park tickets in advance. Most of them have time slots due to popularity, even in the low season, so make sure you don’t miss out and check before you arrive.
• US dollars are fine except on the buses. The intercity and local buses operate in Costa Rica Colones. Make sure you have them in small denominations to pay for your travel. Some drivers may accept dollars, but you’ll hold up the whole bus while they try and work out the conversion on the fly. You’ll also probably pay more. It’s also not guaranteed that they’ll accept them at all.

So, we managed to travel around Costa Rica including all food, flights, accommodation, transport, and excursions – the works – for around £1,000 each for 15 days. Considering flights and transport account for half of that and we didn’t skimp on the excursions -we’re pretty stoked with this price point!