Nine Day Costa Rica Itinerary for Families

This year for spring break we checked another amazing place off our list! Let me just start by saying that I have always been so intimidated to plan a trip to Costa Rica. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always WANTED to go to Costa Rica and there is nothing about the country that made me scared or nervous. But every time I have sat down to research and figure out where to go and what to do I was so overwhelmed by the immense options and how spread out everything seemed. In reality, Costa Rica is actually smaller than the size of West Virginia, but its rugged landscape is covered by jungles, mountains, and volcanoes making travel from place to place slightly difficult and a lot adventurous. If you want to experience more than one destination while visiting this beautiful country and plan to rent a car I very highly recommend a vehicle with 4 wheel drive and maybe even know how to change a tire which thankfully is a skill we didn’t need to test this trip!

Beautiful foliage in the rainforest of La Fortuna

Like so many of our adventures, we wanted to make sure we saw as much of the country as possible, but I still feel we barely scratched the surface. We stayed in 3 different destinations during our time in Costa Rica including La Fortuna (the Rainforest and Arenal Volcano), Monteverde (the Cloud Forest), and Nosara (the Pacific Ocean) which I’ll break down for you below.

A basilisk lizard during our night tour with La Fortuna Tropic-Ventures

To start, we decided to fly in and out of Liberia, but you can also choose to fly into San Jose. Depending on your itinerary, I recommend checking flights to both places as the drive from both Liberia and San Jose to La Fortuna where we started our trip is about 2.5 hours for either route. We ultimately chose Liberia because it was going to be a shorter drive back to the airport from our final destination in Nosara. However if you choose to go to Manuel Antonio or the Caribbean side of Costa Rica then San Jose would be a shorter trek.

Surrounded by beauty upon arriving to Lost Iguana Resort in La Fortuna

After arriving in Liberia in the early afternoon and picking up our rental car, we started our drive to La Fortuna. This drive, aside from being a little winding at times, was actually pretty good! We didn't experience any rough roads and Google Maps worked fantastic for navigation. We did purchase an eSIM card through HolaFly for the trip so we usually had some level of cellular service, however if you prefer to stay unplugged, just make sure to look up directions ahead of time so that you can use them offline.

View of the magnificent Arenal Volcano from our balcony at Lost Iguana Resort

While in the La Fortuna we stayed at Lost Iguana Resort and Spa. I originally found this beautiful little place through another travel blog and it lived up to all my expectations. It’s about a half hour out of the town, which is slightly inconvenient for going to restaurants and some activities, but makes it all that much better for spotting wildlife. We had a room with a view of the Arenal Volcano and spent a lot of time out on our balcony watching the parrots and toucans. There are also many adorable coatis that wander throughout the property some of who may try to join you at your breakfast table if you aren’t paying attention. The Lost Iguana Resort and Spa is also located right next to Mistico Park, home of the famous Arenal Hanging Bridges, which is usually one of the top things on everyone’s itinerary when they come to this region.

Rio Celeste waterfall at Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio

On our first full day in Costa Rica, we drove 2 hours to Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio to do the Rio Celeste waterfall hike. What I didn’t realize until about three quarters of the way into our journey is that we needed to make a reservation and pay our admission fees ahead of time! Thank goodness for the eSIM card and the cellular service that allowed me to quickly handle everything on the SINAC website from my phone before we arrived. The admission fee was $12/adult and $5/child with another $6 for parking. The trail to the waterfall is only about 2.5 miles total out and back including about 250 stairs at the end to descend to the waterfall. The water itself is a beautiful turquoise which local legend says is because God washed his paintbrushes in the river after he finished painting the sky. The true reason for the bright blue color is actually an optical illusion due to a white substance composed of aluminum, silicon, and oxygen that coats the rocks at the bottom of the river bed and reflects the sunlight. But aware, heavy rain can introduce sediment and debris into the river thus temporarily distorting the color of the water to a muddy brown or gray which sometimes leaves visitors disappointed after a long drive and hike to see this magnificent site. That being said, it lightly to moderately rained during our entire hike and I thought the water was still beautiful even if not as bright as on a dry sunny day. Speaking of rain, I really feel it’s important to note that we did travel to Costa Rica during the dry season however the rain forest doesn’t exactly follow those rules. It did rain every day while we were in La Fortuna, sometimes most of the day, so we did get a lot of good use out of our rain jackets which we always kept on hand. For this reason, I think its also important to make sure you bring appropriate footwear that you don’t mind getting dirty and leave your best white sneakers at home!

A red eye tree frog during our night tour with La Fortuna Tropic-Ventures

After some lunch, the drive back to our hotel, and a little relaxation at the swim up bar in the heated pool, we ended our first full day in Costa Rica with an incredible guided night tour. I found our guide Ignacio with La Fortuna Tropic-Ventures on the Costa Rica Travel page on Facebook before our trip and boy was I glad I did. With Ignacio’s expertise, we were able to see a fer-de-lance snake, a yellow eyelash pit viper, a basilisk lizard, numerous red eye tree frogs, and so much more. Ignacio was so kind, knowledgeable, and fantastic with our 7 year old who is obsessed with reptiles and amphibians. This was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip and something I highly recommend!

Enjoying one of the many thermal pools at Baldi Hot Springs

The next day in La Fortuna, we purchased day passes at Baldi Hot Springs and spent hours relaxing in the warm water. Baldi has 25 thermal pools including a kids area and multiple swim up bars. The property was beautiful and the best part was it wasn’t at all crowded and in fact at times it felt like we were the only ones there. This definitely was a great way to get the hot springs resort experience without paying to stay there.

One of several hanging bridges at Mistico Park

On our final morning in La Fortuna, we headed to Mistico Park for a guided tour along the hanging bridges. Now I’m not one that always goes the guided tour route, but once again I was really happy we did because we were able to see so much more wildlife this way. Not only was our guide Julio able to spot things we would have never noticed ourselves but he had a fantastic scope that allowed us up close looks, pictures, and videos.

Sunset at El Sol Monteverde

An amazing fresh breakfast delivered right to our room at El Sol Monteverde

After finishing up at Mistico Park, we started our journey to Monteverde for the next leg of our trip. Now this is where the driving definitely got interesting. At one point Google Maps rerouted us up what appeared to be a roadless grassy hill only to be blocked at the end by an unbothered cow laying across the path who did in fact not move for us. We also experienced some of the very rough roads we had heard so much about and at some points wondered if our SUV would make it in one piece despite having 4 wheel drive. But once we arrived to our next accommodation, we immediately forgot all about any troubles along the way as we were completely mind blown by the beauty that was awaiting us at El Sol Monteverde. To be honest, El Sol was a place I sort of stumbled upon accidentally after I found out that the initial place I wanted to stay was fully booked. As we were only going to be in Monteverde for 2 nights I thought this seemed like a fine enough place to settle but at the time I truly didn’t realize how amazing it was going to be. El Sol has a total of just 6 cabins and based on the size of our family and their remaining availability, we booked the Magic Sun cabin. The Magic Sun cabin feels like a treehouse hideaway with a private wooden deck, an outdoor jacuzzi, and a giant super size hammock net. What I couldn’t imagine until we arrived was truly how magical the views were. The most delightful breakfasts were delivered right to our room each morning for while we had coffee and hot chocolate outside on the deck. In the evenings, we enjoyed the sunsets with a glass of wine while our son created his own Costa Rican comic book inspired by the paper and colored pencils provided. It truly was hard to get us to leave our room! We would plan another trip back to Costa Rica solely to stay at El Sol as this was hands down the best part of our entire trip. Javier, we’ll come back anytime, just say the word!

Zip lining at Selvatura Park

We did muster up the will to leave our incredible tree house at least once to do the big activity we ultimately came to Monteverde to do, and that was zip lining at Selvatura Park! The canopy tour at Selvatura Park includes 13 zip lines through the cloud forest including a 1 km long cable for a total of 2.2 miles in all plus a Tarzan swing for those daring enough to try (all 3 of us did it with different levels of hesitation!). Selvatura Park also has a sloth sanctuary, a reptile and amphibian exhibit, a butterfly garden, and suspension bridges so it really is a way for visitors to check a lot of things off their list in one place.

Sunset at Restaurante La Luna

Following a couple nights in the cloud forest, we started the last part of our trip and drove another 3 hours to Nosara which is a little surfer-yogi beach town on the Pacific coast. For our 3 nights in Nosara we had absolutely no activities planned which was very purposeful. We spent lots of time at the beach, the pool at our hotel The Sunset Shack, the ice cream truck down the road, and I even dropped in for a yoga session at Harmony Hotel because how can you travel all the way to Costa Rica and not do yoga! Our favorite spot we found in Nosara was Playa Pelada which had fun little tide pools at low tide and gorgeous sunsets in the evenings. We also went to Restaurante La Luna on Playa Pelada more than once during our short stay which had great food and amazing sunset views. I highly recommend making a reservation at La Luna though if you plan to be there for sunset!

This trip was so full of memories and I’m so glad we finally made it a priority to visit this incredible place!! If we ever get the chance to go back I’d love to see Manuel Antonio, Uvita, the Caribbean side of the country, and of course go back to a little slice of heaven on Earth at El Sol in Monteverde :)

Itinerary summary:

Day 1 - Travel day - fly to Liberia, drive to La Fortuna, check into Lost Iguana Resort and Spa (3 nights)

Day 2 - Rio Celeste waterfall, night tour with La Fortuna Tropic-Ventures

Day 3 - Day pass at Baldi Hot Springs

Day 4 - Mistico Park Hanging Bridges tour, drive to Monteverde, check into El Sol Monteverde (2 nights)

Day 5 - Zip lining at Selvatura Park

Day 6 - Drive to Nosara, check into The Sunset Shack (3 nights)

Day 7 & 8 - Beach, pool, yoga

Day 9 - Travel day - fly home