Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@HariSekhon

HariSekhon/costarica.md

Last active December 30, 2025 21:46
Show Gist options

  • Select an option

    Learn more about clone URLs
  • Save HariSekhon/98b6799145ce349cbaf41af535753433 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.

Select an option

Learn more about clone URLs
Save HariSekhon/98b6799145ce349cbaf41af535753433 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Download ZIP
costarica.md from HariSekhon/Knowledge-Base repo: https://github.com/HariSekhon/Knowledge-Base
Raw
costarica.md

Costa Rica

Summary

"Expensive" - the first word I hear when I ask other tourists here about how they are finding Costa Rica.

"Muy Caro" (translation: "very expensive") when I ask locals about Costa Rica.

When I asked locals why this is since it doesn't seem justified, they said it's because they get a lot of American tourists, so they've put American prices.

Costa Rica uses their own currency the Colón (plural: Colones), but you can often also give US dollars to taxi drivers or accommodation.

Most places take card, except for InDrive and street food places, so you probably don't need to withdraw that much, and there are ATMs without fees below.

The food is also average at best in most places I've tried. Many places will charge you 13% tax on top of the menu price and another 10%+ service charge on top too, so factor that in to your costs.

I recommend shortening your stay and going straight to the nature reserves and beaches like Manuel Antonio with maximum one night stopover in San Jose if you need it.

Overall, at these prices, I would not re-visit Costa Rica unless I really wanted to go see the nature (there are good beaches all over the world and anybody can build ziplines).

San Jose Airport

Most of the food places are past security.

You might want to eat and drink first though unless you enjoy paying $5-$9 for a bottle of water, $14 for a sandwich, or $25 for a burger and fries (Dec 2025 prices).

There are free water refill stations past security so don't waste your money on bottled water, bring a reusable water bottle.

Thankfully the immigration control and security are pretty quick and don't have the big queues that you see in other bigger airports.

There is a large collection of gift shops past security full of costa rica branded clothes, toys and snacks.

There are charging stations with bar stool style desks for laptops and phones.

Immigration Control - Exit Flight Required

I was actually asked for the date of my outbound flight as well as where I'm staying.

The airline Avianca in EL Salvador refused to let me do a baggage drop to get here without first booking an outbound flight first.

ATMs

  • National Bank ATM - no local ATM fee for withdrawals. There is often quite a queue here (15-20 people), but it goes quickly as there are several ATMs inside
  • BCR (Banco de Costa Rica) - several ATMs without fees, but it rejected my card with some communications error, I then went to National Bank above

Taxi Apps

  • Uber
  • InDrive - usually cheaper than Uber, but often requires cash - I paid in dollars for my first one since I didn't have local currency when coming from the airport
  • DiDi - didn't receive their SMS verification so didn't try it

San Jose

The capital.

You probably want to stay somewhere between Sabana and San José Central Market.

Attractions in San Jose

Restaurants in San Jose

  • Central Market - get here before 5pm and get some street food, it's the difference between paying 3,000-5,000 CRC ($10) vs paying 10,000-20,000 CRC ($20-$40) elsewhere
    • Marisquería La Ribera - affordable seafood place in the central market. The seafood soup is good, and the combos are good food value at 3500 for a fish fillet, rice with seafood, nachos, salad and a drink. I don’t know what that drink was but it was tasty and looked like it had herbs in it, and definitely a little sugar to taste so good. The strawberry milkshake for 1400 was worth it too, just the right amount of sweetness
  • Mexicanito Sport Bar y Restaurante - cheap local eats bar, the cascados with bistek (steak) was good for the price, and comes with rice, plantain, salad, frijoles beans and potato cubes. Has wifi
  • Restaurante Parrilla al Carbon - the 400g strip steak was succulent and very seasoned with rock salt and some yellow thing. It had a little gristle around it but not too much. The plantain split with cheese in the middle was great, I wish there was more of it. I tried to get their creole potatoes but they didn’t have them so settled for mashed potatoes which was nowhere near as good as mine, next time stick to fries. The strawberry smoothie with milk had just the right amount of sweetness. WiFi 16/8 Mbit/s

TODO:

Manuel Antonio & Quepos

Manuel Antonio and Quepos are beach towns about 4 hours drive away from San Jose.

Travel to & from Manuel Antonio

You can catch a bus from Bus Terminal - Tracopa Ltda.

This costs around $10-$12 and takes around 4.5 hours with a 20 minute stopover for a toilet break.

You can also catch the same Trocopa bus back from the Tracopa Manuel Antonio bust stop or from Tracopa Quepos.

The first one is just a bus stop next to the beach, there is no office, so you'll need to pay the bus driver cache and he will shunt you to one of the non-occupied seats.

If you want a box office and ticket in advance you'll need to go to the Quepos location which is an actual bus station.

The timetable is also not printed or displayed anywhere as of Dec 2025 so you'll need to check online (ask ChatGPT).

Travel Within Manuel Antonio / Quepos

There is a bus which has several bus stops along the main road between the two.

The bus only costs 370 CRC ($0.75).

InDrive didn't seem to have any drivers on the map here, leaving only Uber, which would charge you $15 for the same ($0.75) journey the bus does up the road.

It's about a 1 hour walk between the two towns, so if you're staying locally or in between, it's quite walkable anyway, although it has hills.

Attractions in Manuel Antonio

You can catch the bus at bus stops for 370 CRC (< $1).

Restaurants in Manuel Antonio

Tourist priced throughout.

Undecided (mixed bag):

  • Restaurante Mimositico - bistec cascado was overcooked and tough. I had to ask for a sharper knife to be able to cut it and then cut it into tiny pieces to be able to actually eat it. The bistec was also relatively small part of the place compared to other cascados I’ve had in Costa Rica. The strawberry shake with milk was good, but smaller than others I had the last couple days. Did not deserve a 4.9 rating, but perhaps it needs another try. Restaurant was a bit dead, just a couple tourists from neighbouring accommodations. This is not a place locals seem likely to come. WiFi 20/25 Mbit/s
  • Bar las gemelas - food wasn't terrible, nice sunset view, and it's one of the more reasonably priced places to eat at 4500 CRC for a beef casacado, but this is how they get you. When I ordered a strawberry en leche (with milk) ie. a milkshake for 2500 CRC ($5), the waiter gave me the fattening syrup-y 3500 CRC ($7) ice cream one instead, likely on purpose since their service charge is an automatic percentage. Has wifi

Not Recommended:

  • Luna Llena Collectiv Art Cafe Boutique - highly rated, nice ambience and shop mainly targetting women's garments and trinkets, but $12 for a ham and cheese panini, tourist priced. I was still hungry after it and had to eat again

TODO:

Restaurants in Quepos

Seaside town up the road from Manuel Antonio with various restaurants.

  • Sabromar - don't let the empty downstairs fast food restaurant look fool you, the upstairs was packed with locals, unlike the Restaurante Mimositico I went to first. The upstairs restaurant was surprisingly nice. It even has a gift shop at the reception. The shrimp ceviche was decent. The strawberry milkshake was a decent size but it wasn't as good as other places as it was more icy than milky, even though it was "en leche". Wifi 126/93 Mbit/s
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment