Transportation in Costa Rica

When my wife and I go on vacation, we usually rent a car. We love the freedom and flexibility that having our own car affords us. However, we were very worried about driving ourselves around in Costa Rica due to the numerous warnings we heard about: the terrible roads, the dangerous nighttime driving, the criminals targeting foreign drivers...etc. We were so freaked out that we looked at other options such as public transportation and going through a tour company for private transfers. (FYI: After our trip, we felt very strongly that the 80/20 rule applied: the driving horror stories we heard probably came from the minority, or 20% of the visitors to Costa Rica. The majority of visitors don't encounter such problems. So, don't be afraid to rent a car!) In terms of transportation costs, flying into Liberia and getting us to our three destinations: Tamarindo, Monteverde and the Arenal Volcano, this is what we found:

1 week car rental from Hertz = ~$270
Public transportation (Interbus) = ~$200
Semi-private buses (Fantasy Bus) = ~$250
Private transfers between all destinations = ~$500

Buses. Taking buses can be cheaper, but it wasn't worth it for us considering we would have to tailor our precious vacation time to the limited bus schedules. Also, the buses routinely took 2-3x as long due to all the stops it made. Not for us!

Private transfers. What? It costs almost double to hire a driver? We'd also have no wheels while staying in our three destinations? No thanks!

Rental car. This is what we chose to do, although we were still somewhat scared about driving ourselves around! The best rate I could find was from Hertz ($270USD/week for the smallest SUV they had), which surprised me because Hertz is usually one of the most expensive companies to rent from in the U.S. And yes this rate was all-inclusive, and even included the mandatory third party liability insurance that can be as high as $20/day in Costa Rica. I declined the CDW (collision-damage waiver) because my credit card covered it. The car we got was a Daihatsu Terios, and it looked exactly like this:

It was a stick-shift, didn't have power anything, but did have push button on-the-fly 4WD and AC - the essentials!

(FYI: After driving the Terios around Costa Rica for a week and seeing what other people were driving, I can guarantee you that this is the smallest, dinkiest, most tin-can like SUV available in Costa Rica - but is also perfectly sufficient to travel all the roads safely. That's actually good news, sort of! If you want a smoother ride - and thus the ability to drive faster on dirt roads - look for a larger SUV.)

Q: How bad are the roads in Costa Rica?
This is a question that many people have. After hearing the horror stories about how bad the roads are, how much worse they get when it rains and how it's suicide to drive at night, you're probably expecting something like this:

To drive a road like this, you would need a 4x4 vehicle with decent
ground clearance - and you'd still have to drive real slow.

Is this why people don't recommend driving in Costa Rica?

A: You probably won't encounter anything like in the photos above and the roads are not as bad as you think.

Here's the scoop. Not everyone that lives in Costa Rica drives an SUV. Most probably own inexpensive compact sedans - and they drive them everywhere, even on the "worst" roads. The fact that a small sedan can drive on the worst of roads should give you an idea how bad the road conditions are (not that bad). Of course, if you go looking for trouble on that back-country 4x4 trail then you will find it. However, the roads that take you between cities and tourist destinations are well-traveled by: locals in compact sedans, big delivery trucks, public buses and vans, and yes your crappy rental Terios. It can hardly even be considered "off-roading."

Driving at Night. People generally don't recommend driving at night. The only night driving we did was upon our arrival. We drove from Liberia to Tamarindo at around 7:45pm. It took us a little over an hour. There were other cars on the road and we felt completely safe. The rental car agent also reaffirmed the directions I'd found on the web. We didn't try driving at night on some of the more remote drives (for example Monteverde to Arenal) - but after having done it, if push came to shove we probably could have done it at night.

Road conditions. I took video of various roads we travelled. You can see exactly what the roads look like instead of having to rely on other people's subjective descriptions, including mine! The videos can be found in the post I will make for each location.