Stranded in our hotel in Manuel Antonio/Quepos Costa Rica...!

If you don't have a Costas Rica rental car, any Costa Rica hotel between Villa Romantica (Quepos) and Costa Verde (Manuel Antonio) could become a tourist trap... Nothing personal!

It's just that before our Costa Rica trip, when we were trying to book a hotel in the Pacific region, we didn't really knew that the two cities are separated by a hill. Only that there was about 5km between them. So picking any Costa Rica hotel in the middle would allow us to make the trip by foot...

Mistake! We either ended up stranded in our hotel, missing out on the cities and activities, or paying 2-5$ a taxi trip every time. So our decision to choose our Costa Rica hotel by price range (there was so many good choice, we had to make our minds!) was oblivious to the fact that one day would cost around 10$ more because we were on the hill...

If you want an hotel in this Pacific region, and there are many really good ones, rent a car or foresee taxi fares in extra.

Or choose an hotel downtown either one of the cities. Quepos is more the fisherman kind, Manuel Antonio the beach man kind! And again, I'm not badmouthing anyone. Those hotels are more than nice. It's just that no one told us before, so I wanted you to know! It's one of the thing I wish I had done different for the trip, because I'm sure we missed out on so many things!!

Same thing later happened in the Santa Elena / Monteverde region, but this time I had nothing to do with it! It's just that there's no real downtown there, nothing is close to anything. Choose your hotel carefully (so they'll be close to what interest you), rent a car (but roads are horrible to drive there) or lavish on taxis and shuttles.

by BEETLE_VERTE