Costa Rica

Understand

Since the late 1980s, Costa Rica has been a popular nature travel destination, and its main competitive advantage is its well-established system of national parks and protected areas, covering almost 28% of the country's land area, the largest in the world as a percentage of the country's territory, and home to a rich variety of flora and fauna, in a country covering only 0.03% of the world's landmass, but containing about 5% of the world's biodiversity. The country also has plenty of world renowned beaches, in the Pacific Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea, within short travel distances between the coasts, and also several active volcanoes that can be visited safely. Costa Rica has managed to avoid the political turmoil and violence plaguing the region. President Figueres constitutionally abolished the Costa Rican army permanently in 1948 after winning the 44-day civil war, the last significant political violence in the country. Costa Rica is Latin America's oldest democracy (since the Chilean coup d'etat in 1973) and one of only a handful of presidential republics in the world to last more than five decades. Costa Rica placed 5th among 21 Latin American countries (68th overall) in the 2018 Human Development Index. It frequently performs better than countries with higher GDP per capita in this measure and while still plagued with stark income and wealth inequality, it has these problems to a lesser extent than many other Latin American countries. Costa Rica is ranked third in the world and first among the Americas in terms of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index. And the New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranked Costa Rica as the happiest nation in the world in 2009 and in 2012. NEF ranked Costa Rica as the "greenest" country in the world. Costa Rica has been home to a large Jamaican diaspora community in Limón Province since the 19th century, and an English-based creole similar to Jamaican patois continues to be spoken there. So don't be surprised to meet locals with

Getting there

Entry requirements Visitors from most developed countries can enter Costa Rica without a visa and can stay for 180 days. Check with Immigration for more details. However, people of any nationality holding valid U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea or Schengen visas do not need a prior visa. The only conditions being that the visa must be valid for three months and should be stamped in your passport. Before travelling, verify the entry requirements in effect with TimaticWeb or with a Costa Rican consulate. If you have an unusual passport/visa combination, allow extra time for check-in, especially if flying with a minor airline, which may not have a TimaticWeb subscription, or whose staff may not know how to use it. The entry requirements include having a return ticket. If you are doing a multi-country trip, and the return air ticket to your home country is from an adjacent country, such as Panama or Nicaragua, that would usually satisfy the immigration authorities and the airline check-in staff; nonetheless, if travelling on an itinerary like this (especially with an unusual passport), it may be safer to purchase a fully refundable ticket directly from Costa Rica, and cancel it once no longer needed. A word of caution to Nicaraguan citizens traveling through the San José airport: the 30-day tourist visa for Nicaraguans permits only a single entry. if you have a flight from San José going elsewhere make sure to double check with the embassy, otherwise they will make you buy an extra flight and not let you in. Costa Rica requires a valid yellow fever certificate if arriving from countries where that disease is prevalent (such as Panama and most South American countries). If such is not presented you would not be allowed to enter/board the flight. At Bogota airport, if you have a certificate you can have it e-mailed to the airline and then proceed to the local vaccination authority for duplicate certificate to be issued free of charge. The critical part is to get the prin

Getting around

Cope Although Costa Rica has established official street names in most cities for governmental purposes, most of the population is unaware of these names and if they are known, most streets will lack proper signs stating said names. Asking for directions from a local could result in a tedious and difficult conversation as said directions are given out based on a common or well known building, store, office or other landmark in order to find what you are looking for. As such, you would need to know important landmarks and their locations well enough to be able to get around more easily. Cien metros or 100 meters, is commonly used to refer to a city "block," which are usually 100 m, but in some cases could be more or less. However, despite what the exact distance is, many locals tend to use 100 m or a city block when giving out directions.

Navigation and GPS For reliable (offline) maps and GPS navigation, consult OpenStreetMap-based apps, such like OsmAnd or Mapy.cz. Or just download the according GPX or KML files through Waymarked Trails for such trails on OpenStreetMap. (Note, you just need to change the OpenStreetMap relation ID to download the GPX or KML files through the same link.) OpenStreetMap contributors also produce Garmin compatible maps that are open source and constantly updated. If possible, contribute back the tracks of your trip to the project. Free GPS maps from the Cenrut project. The Cenrut maps can be loaded on Garmin devices, iPhones and Android phones. Waze, the smartphone application is a favorite among Costa Ricans as a GPS with real time updates on traffic. Google Maps on a cell phone or tablet can be a useful tool to locate Points of Interest (POIs) or devise a route to a destination, it offers turn-by-turn routable directions, but is not very used by locals, so fixes and routing might be more accurate in Waze.

Road conditions For the most part, Costa Rica's roads are paved but have minimal upkeep. Also, there are many narrow bridges

See

Wildlife

Costa Rica is world famous for having an incredibly high level of biodiversity throughout its tropical forests (this covers what you may hear referred to as rain forests, cloud forests, and dry forests). There are tropical mammals such as monkeys, sloths, tapirs, and wild cats as well as an amazing assortment of insects and other animals. There are many, many birds (both migratory and resident). With 25% of the country being national parks and protected areas, there are still many places you can go to see the abundant wildlife and lush vegetation of the country. Just like anywhere, the farther you get off the beaten path, the more likely you are to see a wide variety of flora and fauna. There is such biodiversity in Costa Rica not only because it's a land bridge between North and South America, but also because the terrain is so varied and there are weather patterns moving in from both the Pacific and Atlantic/Caribbean. There are impressive volcanoes, mountain areas, river