Hi Tneill101!

It’s awesome to hear that you’re coming back! It sounds like you’ve been bitten by the pura vida bug. 😉

Here are a few of my thoughts following your itinerary comments:

Yes! Visit the Arenal area, as you note, because you haven’t experienced it before, especially the hot springs. Since you’re so adventurous and love the water, I’d recommend checking out canyoning tours or the waterfall jumping tour, and activities to do around Lake Arenal, including kayaking and stand-up paddling. Desafio Adventure Company recently opened a whole Lake-based operation in the El Castillo / El Fosforo area, at the edge of the lake. With a car, that area is accessible from La Fortuna, so feel free to station yourself at a La Fortuna hotel. Alternatively, you can station yourself at a hotel in El Castillo directly.

The choice is entirely yours, but if you aren’t into bird-watching and the potential for cooler temperatures, I’d say you won’t be missing out by skipping Monteverde. Personally, I love Monteverde and recommend it highly, but mainly to people who love hiking and/or bird-watching, and who want to explore the cloud forest. If these activities don’t interest you, and the possibility of cooler temps would be a turnoff, you’d probably be best to avoid Monteverde altogether.

Visiting the Caribbean coast will add more driving, but whether or not that extra driving is worth it depends on your level of interest in attractions in the Caribbean area. There are a ton of reasons to visit the Caribbean coast (immersing yourself in the Caribbean culture is a top one), but if your interest is adventure, the region may not be the best for you. Are you interested in gentle water exploration? If so, you may like Tortuguero, because you can go boating and kayaking on the canals there. Tortuguero is very quiet, though, and bird-watching is another main activity, which I know isn’t a main interest of yours. The biggest adventure activity in the Caribbean region is the Pacuare River Rafting Tour, which is a must-do activity, in my opinion. It’s an inland Caribbean activity, though, which means you don’t need to travel all the way to the Caribbean coast to experience it. The river is commonly accessed from La Fortuna and San Jose.

Since you mentioned you’d like to visit two destinations after your husband leaves, and you’ve likely decided to head back to Nosara for the first portion of the trip with him as part of the group, I’d consider making La Fortuna (Arenal) and Manuel Antonio your two next destinations. Manuel Antonio provides a ton of adventures (the 10-in-1 Adventure Combo offered by Amigos del Rio may interest you, waterfall jumping with Paddle 9 may interest you, and kayaking through the mangroves may interest you), and it’s also within reach of the beautiful Nauyaca Waterfalls (that you can visit and swim at) with a rental car. Alternatively, if you don’t want to travel as far down the coast as Manuel Antonio, and you’re looking for a new area to explore in the Guanacaste / Northern Pacific region, you may want to check out the Rincon de la Vieja area. It’s largely quiet but does offer some properties with adventure activities and hot springs (see Hacienda Guachipelin, for example).

One last note, if you wish to spend time at additional waterfalls, you may want to check out the Blue Falls of Costa Rica (near Catarata del Toro) if you opt to fly out of San Jose, or the Llanos del Cortes Waterfall if you opt to fly out of Liberia.

Pura vida! 🙂