Planning the Trip

We decided to use our frequent flyer miles on Continental to get us to and from Costa Rica. We booked tickets just two months in advance (low season) and flew in and out of the relatively new Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia (Guanacaste Province). (FYI: Our flights ended up being only about half full!) We would arrive around 7:30pm July 4th, and leave around 7am July 11th - basically 7 days and 7 nights. That was the easy part! The next part was planning where to go in Costa Rica - a daunting proposition!

The airport in Liberia - it's small and mostly outdoors, but it gets the job done.

There are so many different places to visit in Costa Rica that it makes it difficult to plan an itinerary. You can choose from beaches, idyllic surfing breaks, volcanoes, the big city (San Jose), cloud forests and more! Then you have to figure out how to get everywhere. Again there are many choices including renting a car, taking public transportation, taking private buses, hiring a private driver, hiring a tour company and taking in-country flights. It's enough to make your head spin!

After much deliberation and painstaking research, we ended up choosing to visit three places: Tamarindo for the beaches, Monteverde for the cloud forest and Arenal for the volcano. After much more deliberation and painstaking research, we also chose to rent a car and do all the driving ourselves. (FYI: In the end everything turned out great and our trip was wonderful!)
Here is our final itinerary:

• Day 1: Fly into Liberia (evening). Drive to Tamarando. Stay at Sueno Del Mar.
• Day 2: Beach day. Stay at Sueno Del Mar.
• Day 3: Beach day. Stay at Sueno Del Mar.
• Day 4: Drive to Monteverde in the morning. Stay at Monteverde Lodge and Gardens.
• Day 5: Cloud forest activities. Stay at Monteverde Lodge and Gardens.
• Day 6: Drive to Arenal Volcano in the morning. Stay at Tabacon Resort.
• Day 7: Drive to Liberia, Guanacaste beaches in the afternoon. Lodging TBD.
• Day 8: Morning flight back home.

I would recommend visiting these places in such an order as we did to avoid having to do any backtracking.