Costa Rica Offers Affordable Luxury & Adventure

If you’re looking for a vacation destination where you can get real value for your travel dollars, put Costa Rica on your list of countries to visit.

A Central American country, Costa Rica is perfectly poised between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and is accessible from the United States via air (usually through San Jose, the capital city or Limon), with connections throughout the rest of the country.  In addition, cruise ships calls on ports Puerto Limon and Puntarenas, often continuing on through the Panama Canal.

The country is located a mere 10 degrees north of the Equator and so has tropical climate year round, yet it still gets plenty of rain.  Generally speaking, the dry season runs December to April and the rainy season runs May to November, which is helpful to keep in mind when making travel plans.  I visited during late November and found the weather warm and comfortable.

What’s there to do in Costa Rica?  Here are a few suggestions:

• Enjoy the sun, surf, and sand.  You can surf, snorkel, scuba dive, raft, or try sport fishing.  Or just relax on the beach with a good book and cold beverage.
• You’ll be able to see dolphins, whale, and lots of other sea life.
• Get back to nature with a visit to the rain forest, transitional forest, or cloud forest.  It’s a wonderful look at tropical flowers and plants, butterfly, and all sorts of exotic wildlife.  I’ve seen monkeys, crocodile, turtle, macaws and other tropical birds, and a giant snake.  Okay, I didn’t go over to look at the snake, but the others in the group did.
• Enjoy a little luxury with upscale resorts and spas, offering all the expected amenities from beautiful golf courses to fine dining.
• Take to the sky, with a little adventure vacationing and try zip lining, ballooning, canopy tours, or bungee jumping.  I can skip that last one, but the rest are tons of fun.
• Continue on with adventure activities with hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding,
• Visit a volcano.  The Arenal Volcano is one of the top 10 most active volcanoes in the world, and puts on spectacular displays of lava flows and ash spumes nearly every night.

A few additional facts that I think make Costa Rica even more appealing:

• The country permanently abolished its army in 1949.
• It is on the list of the world’s 22 most stable and wealthy democracies
• It ranks 3rd in the world on the 2010 Environmental Performance Index which benchmarks the environmental performance of policies of countries around the world.  By comparison, the US ranked 61st
• It’s been ranked the first in the Happy Planet Index which lists the happiest countries in the world
• It is the greenest country in the world, with a goal to become the first carbon neutral country by 2021

With a favorable currency exchange rate, $1 = CRC 513 (Costa Rican Colones), Costa Rica vacations make a lot of budget sense as well.  You can get lots of bang for your buck, whether you opt for luxury accommodations or more budget-minded choices.

Photo credits: Parque Nacional Corcovado (top); Tapantí National Park (lower)

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