A Costa Rica Vacation With the Luxury You Expect

If you want to enjoy a Costa Rica vacation with sheer unadulterated luxury, then you have to know what the country has to offer.  As with most vacation destinations, Costa Rica has a lot, since although the country is not the richest, it knows how to treat tourists from which much of its wealth is obtained.

Geographically, the Republic of Costa Rica is bordered by Panama to its south and east, Nicaragua to the north, and sea to the rest. Specifically, the Pacific Ocean to its west and south, and the Caribbean to the east.  As a piece of trivia, Costa Rica was the first ever country to officially abolish its army.

Without you and others like you, this Central American country would be poorer, as would its citizens. That is one of the reasons why you will be well looked after:  the other being that this country actually has an awful lot to offer.   It is friendly and peaceful, and also contains a large number of Americans who have made this their home. Its attractions include the climate, the culture and the customs, much like the Brits move to Spain in their retirement years.

Costa Rica offers some of the best hotels in the American continent, including such as the Finca Rosa Blanca that is one of the premier boutique hotels in the world, with the appearance of a fairy tale building on a bluff with an outlook right across the Central Valley.  This is only one of the famous hotels in this wonderful country, and one worth a visit by any tourist.

Nobody that vacations in Costa Rica should miss the Braulio Carrillo National Park - a typically tropical rainforest full of bright green vegetation, waterfalls and plants, and animals that give you a sense of being very close to nature.  The beauty of this national park cannot be conveyed in words, and it’s next to impossible to describe the breadth and scope of the area that the Braulio Carrillo covers.

Another feature you must visit on your Costa Rica vacation is the Tortuguero Canal. In order to appreciate these areas of this country you definitely need a personal guide, so make sure that when booking a vacation you are provided with a tourist guide or escort that knows the area. This is because there are so many animals and plants in this country that you need somebody that knows about them:  what they are and where to find them.

The Tortuguero Canal area is best explored from a lodge in or close to the jungle, and only the best vacation companies offer you that.  However, it is worth the cost because you get to see the environment as it really is, not sanitized for the tourists. A good naturalist can provide you with information that you could never get trying to explore the area alone, and that can really make your vacation in Costa Rica come alive.  A rainforest has a life of its own, and you need people that knows it to show you as it really is.

Costa Rica has its own 'land of fire' that not many tourists have the privilege of visiting, so make sure that you get the chance.  The area is called the Fire Mountain, and is a volcano, the name of which correctly is the Arenal Volcano.  In 1968 it erupted and killed over 100 villagers of Pueblo Nuevo, with significant economic deprivation.  However, it then became a tourist center, and a new road has brought a significant amount of money into the community.

Get the right hotel here, and you can not only overlook the twin peaks of the volcano, but also enjoy the hot springs that are a natural result of it. You can also watch the lava flowing from the volcano, because this one is very active (without presenting a hazard unless you get too close).  The biodiversity in this region is very widespread, and you can canoe in Lake Arenal or go on a hiking trip to explore it.

If you have never seen them, you must have read about adobe buildings. Guanacaste is famed for its 19th century white adobe buildings, made of adobe with a white lime coating.  Because of them the town is known as the 'White City'. It's a great place to explore and in which to have lunch because it really brings it home to you that your vacation in Costa Rica is exposing you to real life as was in the past. This is not designed for tourists:  it is real!

So there it is.  That is what a Costa Rica vacation has to offer.  You can do all that, have a horse ride to the waterfalls near the Rincon de la Vieja volcano and then head back to San Jose.  You can reflect on what you have seen before flying back home, and perhaps leave with a different view of Central America than you had when you arrived.

The animals and scenery will do that to an extent, but most of all the friendliness of the people and the (to you) unexpected quality of the accommodation and the food. Who knows - perhaps this will also be your destination next year!  Because your Costa Rica vacation was more than you though it would have been.