Hey Sabrina!

How exciting! Thanks so much for choosing Costa Rica for your family vacation. 🙂

Re: transportation. It’s the law that children (up to 10 years) must use a car seat in Costa Rica, so most transportation service providers will provide them, and most will do so free of charge. You’ll just need to let them know at the time of reservation (if you decide to use transportation services to get around) that you have children and require car seats, so availability for the car seats can be confirmed.

Alternatively, you can rent a vehicle. As a group of six people, you could rent a seven-passenger SUV, but that size of vehicle likely won’t provide you with enough room for everyone’s luggage. The better option, I believe, would be to rent a van.

Re: accommodations. In my personal opinion, I’m not a huge fan of house rentals for short-term stays; we tend to only recommend them for long-term stays, or for short-term trips taken by travelers who intend to stay in one place and not travel around to multiple destinations. That being said, as a group of six people, it can be tricky to find hotels that will allow all six of you to stay in one room, and not require you to reserve two rooms. Because your five-month-old requires a crib, though, and not a bed, you should be able to get away with reserving a room for five people (plus the crib). Although the majority of hotels will only allow a maximum of four people to stay in a room, there are some that will allow five people to stay together, so that is an option if you absolutely don’t want to reserve two rooms for the group.

Something to consider when deciding whether to rent a car/van or to use transportation services to get around is the cost of getting to and from your chosen accommodation and the location of the tours/activities you wish to experience. For example, if you opt to visit La Fortuna, and you wish to visit the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges Park or the Sky Walk Hanging Bridges at the Sky Adventures Arenal Park, you’ll need to factor in the cost of getting to/from these destinations because neither the Mistico Park nor Sky Adventures automatically includes transportation to/from their parks in the cost of their tour/activity rates. If you rent a car/van, you can save yourself the cost of paying for transportation to/from the parks, and other destinations you wish to visit. Without a car/van, you’ll need to budget the cost of taxi services (two taxis may be required to transport your group of 6 people) to these places. It’s also worth noting that several vacation homes are located on the outskirts of towns and don’t qualify for tour operators’ tour/activity transportation services, so having a car/van is especially worthwhile if you end up renting a house outside of the town you plan to visit. For more information about transportation to/from tours/activities, please see this article of ours: https://costaricatravelblog.com/costa-rica-tour-transportation-hotel-pick-ups-drop-offs/

Lastly, for help narrowing down the exact places you should visit, have you yet tried our Costa Rica Destination Tool? We created the tool specifically for this task, and as a DIY Costa Rica member, you can use it for free! You can find the Costa Rica Destination Tool here: https://www.diycostarica.com/about-the-costa-rica-destination-tool/

Pura vida! 🙂