Destination: Costa Rica

Odyssey travels by coach and occasionally uses local transport, including trains and ferries. Specifics are always outlined in your tour itinerary. Efficient express bus services go to most towns from Costa Rica city. Most of these regular services have air-conditioning but are otherwise often in poor condition.

In major cities, Odyssey stays in centrally located 3-4 star hotels, with easy access to public transport. In smaller towns or rural areas, we usually stay in family-run hotels or guesthouses. On our longstay tours, during which you spend the length of the tour in a single location, we use serviced apartments.

Odyssey always engages local guides with regional knowledge to ensure an authentic experience during which you can learn as much as possible about the history and culture of places you visit.

Costa Rica is a 51,000 square kilometre, mountainous country bordering Panama in the south and Nicaragua in the North, located between the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

The climate in Costa Rica is tropical with high temperatures and humidity and not much seasonal variations. There is a rainy season between May and September.

There are 4 sites in Costa Rica listed on the World Heritage List. You can view the listed properties here: (https://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/cr). Costa Rica’s listed properties include:

Area de Conservación Guanacaste, which contains important natural habitats for the conservation of biological diversity, including the best dry forest habitats from Central America to northern Mexico and key habitats for endangered or rare plant and animal species.

Cocos Island National Park, located 550 km off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, is the only island in the tropical eastern Pacific with a tropical rainforest and a thriving surrounding marine ecosystem.

Precolumbian Chiefdom Settlements with Stone Spheres of the Diquís, which includes four archaeological sites located in the Diquís Delta in southern Costa Rica, which are considered unique examples of the complex social, economic and political systems of the period AD 500–1500.

The various annual events and festivals of Costa Rica serve as a major tourist attraction. Though it is a Catholic country, its people love to enjoy parties and even use religious holidays as an excuse to celebrate.

Envision Festival in February featuring live concerts, yoga, trapeze and lots of communing on the beach.

Fiestas Palmares is the a cowboy party that lasts for two weeks in January. This festival has assumed national importance.

Costa Ricans main food is rice, beans and plantain. A solid breakfast contains of rice and beans (called Gallo Pinto). Lunch is usually very solid too, howver, Dinner is typically light. As a tourist you will experience that the portions on your dish are large and some times even exaggerated. Traditional food may be not delicate, but is normally very tasteful. Fish is freshly caught and beef is of excellent quality. Recipes of traditional dishes are on sale in the country. The fruit juices popular in Costa Rica, make sure you ask for ‘naturales’. Cas, soursoap, lemon, blackberry, passion fruit, pineapple, banana, tamarindo en lots of other types of fruit are worth trying.
The national drink is ‘Cacique’, also distilled form sugar cane. It tastes like gin (a very cheap one).
Beer (national brands are Imperial and Pilsen) is excellent.

As of writing, smartraveller.gov.au advises travellers to exercise a high degree of caution when travelling through Costa Rica. Crime is a significant problem in some of Costa Rica’s major cities, so keep your valaubles close and pay attention to your personal security.

Whenever you travel overseas, it’s always wise to take an appropriate travel adaptor. The electricity supply in Costa Rica runs at 110V and 60Hz. Costa Rica uses the Type A and Type B electric plug types, so make sure you have the right travel adaptor with you.