Day 1:  Departure to San Jose

You will be met at the airport by your Earth Trip representative and driven to your hotel.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast

Day 2: Alujuela to Tortuguero

This morning after breakfast, you will be picked-up and transferred to the airport for your flight to Tortuguero National Park. Be sure you get a window seat for the plane. The flight is beautiful – over the country’s central cordillera mountains and volcanoes, over lush forest and down to the coastal lowlands. You will be met at the airport and taken to rendezvous with a launch for a boat ride to your lodge, the best in Tortuguero, situated on the river, in the heart of the National Park. Look out for American Crocodiles basking on the mudflats en route and kingfishers in the trees.

Tortuguero is one of Latin America’s top wildlife destinations, with 210 km2 of protected natural forests – one of the last large swathes of coastal rainforest in Central America.

Eleven habitats are found in the park, and you will explore them over the following few days. Three species of monkey (Spider, Howler, and White-faced), Three toed Sloths, and river otters are frequently seen along the natural inland waterways and creeks. American crocodiles, caiman, iguanas, river turtles, Basilisk Lizards, and Poison Dart Frogs (Dendrobates) inhabit the area, along with more than 320 species of birds including all six species of neotropical kingfishers, three species of toucans, eight species of parrots, and other neotropical species such as the Slaty-tailed Trogon, White-collared Manakin and the Purple-throated Fruitcrow.   You will have the opportunity to observe many more species during your boat rides through the backwater creeks of Tortuguero National Park. The park is most famous for its marine turtles, and you are there at the best time to see them.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 3: Tortuguero

While the lodge will programme the wildlife orientated activities according to the best possible times, on their first morning guests usually take an early boat trip down river to the turtle nesting beaches which fringe much of the park.

Four species of marine turtles nest in Tortuguero. And they nest in huge numbers. Some 22,500 Green turtles arrive between July and October, together with smaller numbers of Loggerheads (the world’s largest hard-shelled turtle at 200kg), critically endangered Hawksbill turtles (named for their hooked beaks) and enormous 600kg, 2 metre long Leatherbacks; the heaviest reptile in the world.

In the afternoon you will enjoy a tour from the options available at the lodge – ranging from boat explorations of the creeks and forests to an easy hike up Cerro Tortuguero hill, for some of the best views in Central America – of endless rain forest, rivers and beaches stretching at your feet, to a visit to sleepy Tortuguero villages with its pretty wood-slat houses. Or if you prefer you can walk the trails around the lodge or enjoy some down time by the pool.

In the early evening La Tortuga offers twilight and in-the-dark guided rain forest walks through Tortuga Lodge’s private 26-hectare nature reserve. This is the best time to see Costa Rica’s iconic tree frogs, reptiles and nocturnal mammals and birds. The Lodge’s naturalist guide will fit you out with wellies and a torch.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast

Day 4: Tortuguero to Pacuaré Reserve

After breakfast you will take a boat through Tortuguero’s winding creeks to Caño Bravo dock where a representative will transfer you to Pacuaré Jungle Reserve. Pacuaré is spectacular; so is arrival at the Reserve’s gorgeous lodge – one of the most luxurious and beautiful in Costa Rica: you reach the lodge on a cable zip line – suspended in a basket (like those used in hot air balloons) as you drift out of the jungle and across the torrid Pacuaré River.

Pacuaré itself is extraordinary: set in the thick of a huge Caribbean coast reserve that stretches down the rugged hills of the Talamanca Mountain Range to the Caribbean Sea. The reserve preserves some of the most important habitats in Central America. The river itself has some of the finest white-water rafting (at levels – from complete beginner to intermediate) and kayaking in Latin America, tumbling over a series of rapids that rush through a canyon framed by dense, primordial rainforest.

The reserve itself is particularly rich in mammals, including to jaguars, ocelots, three species of monkey and sloths. Deep inside the Pacuare Protected Zone, perched on the banks of this enchanting river, lies the singular Pacuare Lodge. The reserve is an ecotourism success story. The lowland sections were once logged for hard wood timber and cleared for cattle grazing. They are now fully protected, and the loggers and farmers and their children have become custodians of the land. Many of them work at Pacuaré Lodge itself.

No lodge Costa Rica lodge is more spectacularly situated. Palm-thatch hardwood cottages sit around a luxurious pool on the banks of the winding river. Tree frogs and cicadas trill and whirr all around against the background rush of the river. At night there fireflies twinkle in the gardens; the rooms and public areas lit by low candlelight, stars spread above. Striking art handmade by the local Cabécar people dot the public areas – huge rainforest trees, exuberant greenery and myriad heliconias and orchids frame the scene.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 5: Pacuaré Reserve

Today you have a full day to explore the reserve, choosing from an extensive menu of guided tours and activities. For the more adventurous, there is canopy zip-lining – whipping through the trees at toucan-eye level. Or you can enjoy some more sedate canopy wildlife-watching from the lodge’s ‘nests’ set in the trees. There are guided wildlife walks (with stop-offs for a swim in a cool waterfall pool), guided birdwatching, night safaris, visits to Guayabo – Costa Rica’s most important pre-Columbian archaeological site or to Cabecar indigenous villages nearby. There’s a spa on site, a beautiful pool and optional yoga every morning.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 6: Pacuaré Reserve to Arenal Volcano

After breakfast you leave the lodge as spectacularly as you arrived – this time on a raft down the Pacuaré River. The river is one of the loveliest in Costa Rica – drifting through gorges, plunging over rapids and coursing through some of the least spoilt forest landscapes in the country. It’s an unforgettable (and easy) rafting ride. An Earth Trip representative will be waiting to meet you at the end of the excursion; where you will have lunch before your transfer to Arenal Volcano and the plush Nayara Springs Lodge.

Arenal is a stunning, perfectly conical volcano surrounded by lush Costa Rican jungle. Your hotel has superb views of Arenal’s perfectly symmetrical cone; and is fed by soothing thermal waters from the mountain – right into your own personal mini-swimming pool. This lies a stroll from your bed in a plush room decked out with luxurious hard wood and with a huge raw stone bathroom. After the creatures come the creature comforts. But it’s still wild all around. Soaking in the mineral water springs under a night of shimmering stars – or the big hotel pool with the volcano cone overhead and hummingbirds all around is an unforgettable experience.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast

Day 7: Arenal Volcano

Arenal is a stunning, perfectly conical volcano surrounded by lush Costa Rican jungle. Your hotel has superb views of Arenal’s perfectly symmetrical cone; and is fed by soothing thermal waters from the mountain – right into your own personal mini-swimming pool. This lies a stroll from your bed in a plush room decked out with luxurious hard wood and with a huge raw stone bathroom. After the creatures come the creature comforts. But it’s still wild all around. Soaking in the mineral water springs under a night of shimmering stars – or in the big hotel pool with the volcano cone overhead and hummingbirds all around, is an unforgettable experience.

After breakfast this morning, you will be picked up for your shared tour of Hanging Bridges and Mistico Park. This is a gorgeous spot. Mistico has a series of trails running through extensive broadleaf tropical rainforest, cutting across streams and leading to a series of six canopy walkways with wonderful views of the birds and primates at the park. Arenal volcano looms in the distance. The walk is gentle as the paths are paved with stone. The entire circuit is around 3 km. You will be accompanied by an expert naturalist guide who will explain the forest ecosystems and point out the different species of wildlife you will see from the suspension bridges and on the forest floor.

You will return to your hotel in the early afternoon and have the rest of the day at leisure, to soak in the pool or the thermal springs, or perhaps to visit La Fortuna village for a spot of shopping.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast

Day 8- Arenal Volcano

This morning after breakfast, you will be met at your hotel and taked for a shared hike along the 1968 Trail. This is one of the loveliest walks in Costa Rica – running through pine forests and rainforests and across the black, wizened lava fields. The walk offers the most extraordinary views of Arenal Volcano and is named after Arenal’s first eruption, back in 1968. It takes around 1½ -2 hours and is easy to intermediate in difficulty. Bring walking shoes, a hat and sun protection. After your walk, you can enjoy a well-deserved soak in some one of Arenal’s warm volcanic mineral rivers. You then have the rest of the day at leisure.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast

Day 9- Arenal Volcano ® Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

After breakfast you will take a boat across Arenal Lake – a wonderful journey in the shadow of the volcano, from where you will be driven to Costa Rica’s famous Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. This is one of the best birdwatching destinations in Central America and the key reserve for one of the most spectacular birds in the Americas, the Resplendent Quetzal. Monteverde is a magical spot. Trails run through misty forests shrouded with moss and lichens and with myriad orchids in the trees. Glades reveal stunning clear mountain views (out across rainforest-covered ridges to the distant coast). As well as quetzals, pumas, ocelots, margays and capuchin monkeys live in Monteverde, and dozens of hummingbirds including green-crowned brilliants, violet sabrewings, steely-vented and stripe-tailed hummingbirds, coppery-headed emerald, purple-throated mountain gem, green violet-ears and bananaquits. At night you can often see bush-baby-like olingos in the trees.

Nestled in its own private rainforest reserve, yet within easy walking distance of the village, your lodge is the best in Monteverde; ticking all the boxes both for comfort and for award-winning sustainability. The restaurant is excellent. After taking lunch, you will enjoy a guided wildlife walk of the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve with a specialist guide.

Day 10- Monteverde Cloud Forest

This morning after breakfast, you will be picked-up from your hotel for your Sky Tram, Sky Trek & Sky Walk. The Sky Trek involves a shuttle ride up the mountain and an exciting return along ziplines, with 7 cables that extend up to 200m in height and 750m in length and attain speeds of over 50km/h. The views and exhilaration are extraordinary; and optional. The Sky Walk offers a more tranquil exploration, on a 4km circuit trail that snakes through the high canopy, offering monkey’s eye views of the flora and fauna of the forest canopy. The trails includes some uneven surfaces and several ascents and descents so please bring sensible shoes, as well as the usual sunhat and repellent. After the excursion, in the early afternoon, you will be transferred back to your hotel and have the rest of the day at leisure.

Day 11- Monteverde Cloud Forest to Santa Teresa

Today you will be transferred to the beautiful Pacific Coast and the stunning beaches around Santa Teresa. It’s a long transfer of around four hours, but there’s plenty to see along the way, and the beaches are worth the drive. They’re among the very best in the Americas: long bays and strands of soft, fine sand, washed by curling Pacific surf and backed by extensive rainforest.

Santa Teresa is a charming village lost on a wild coast, backed by rolling jungle-covered mountains. Over the last decade it has become an under-the-radar, low key destination for off duty Hollywood. Chris Hemsworth can often be spotted surfing on the bays. Mel Gibson and Giselle Bundchen have houses here. In the little town, which runs behind a seemingly endless beach, barefoot chic restaurants sit alongside surf shops and Ocean Pacific boutiques; locals and visitors alike are all friendly and welcoming and you’ll find it easy to make conversation under candle and starlight at one of the scattering of beach bars.

The resort is at its most romantic by night when each cabana is mood lit. The air is scented with the musky perfume of the forest and the spicy salt of the surf and filled with the chirruping calls of cicadas and tree frogs. Sinuous paths run through the trees from your cabana to the main house – and the bar-restaurant where the chef cooks sizzling, fresh fish and the bar staff mix ice-cold, tangy mojitos, caipirinhas and assorted tropical cocktails.

Day 12 & 13- Santa Teresa

You will have the next two days at leisure to explore the beaches, surf, swim or simply curl up with a book and an icy mojito by the pool or on the sand.

There are dozens of beaches to explore – from coconut-shaded coves lapped by a gentle sea, to long, sweeping bays, pounded by powerful Pacific surf and crowned with rain forest-covered headlands. The sea is bath-water warm, and the surfing is some of the best in the Americas. Florblanca hires boards and can organise lessons. Pacific Surf Studios in the one-street main town has full courses which will take you from absolute beginner to upright surfer in a week. If you prefer something less vigorous you can book a yoga session with Brazilian, Cristina Kaylani yoga instructor to visiting celebrities – including Leonardo Di Caprio and fellow country woman Gisele, who’s a neighbour. Book a beach session in the early morning – and stretch with the waking sun to the sound of the pounding surf. Then take breakfast in the Zwart Art café where Canadian turned Costa Rican Margriet makes delicious detoxifying tropical fruit smoothies.

Day 14- Santa Teresa to Osa Peninsula

This morning you will fly to Costa Rica’s premium wildlife destination, the Osa Peninsula via San José. This Osa is a thumb-shaped, beach-fringed peninsula swathed with thick lowland rainforest and cut with rushing clear-water rivers. The views of thick jungle dropping to turquoise ocean and distant mountains are magnificent. And there is nowhere better in Costa Rica for seeing large mammals. Jaguar live here in healthy numbers, there are tapir, ocelot and large troops of howler monkeys. The density of bird and primate life is as good as it gets in Central America; and turtles visit the beaches. The Osa bird list has some 450 species including endemics, the vulnerable black swift, agami heron, harpy eagle, turquoise cotinga, three-wattled bellbird,a nd the endangered mangrove hummingbird. You are visiting at the best time for birds.

Your jungle-chic ecolodge is the most luxurious in Osa – perched on a hill with wonderful views and with coatimundi, capuchin monkeys and sloths in the trees right outside your palm-thatch roofed villa. Guiding is superb.

Day 15 & 16- Osa Peninsula

Over the next two days you will enjoy the best of what the Osa Peninsula has to offer.

Jetting into the inky Pacific and covered almost entirely by Central America’s last great old growth Pacific tropical forest, the remote Osa peninsula is one of Central America’s last great mammal refuges. All of Costa Rica’s six cat species can be found here, together with the biggest mammal in tropical America, Baird’s tapir. Even in Osa, tapirs are timid and spotted cats hard to spot. But you stand the best chance of seeing the wildlife where you are staying. Lapa Rios sits on the edge of the 42,469 ha Corcovado National Park – the wild heart of the Osa.

Guides will take you on dawn, dusk and night walks into the forest, along the best trails. And there is a huge menu of activities and excursions to choose from, most of them included in your package: dawn and sunset bird walks, canopy zip lines, canyoning, wild waterfall hikes, medicinal plant trails, rain forest ridge walks, night safaris. There are water-based activities too: including dolphin watching, paddle-boarding, surfing and sports fishing.

Day 17 to 19- Osa Peninsula to Puerto Jimenez to Uvita

This morning after breakfast you will transfer to the modish reef, beach and rain forest village of Uvita. Along the way you will pass the rain forest covered, waterfall-flowing ridges of the Golfito Dulce fjord which drop into a Norway-deep ocean inlet. Jaguars, tapirs and scarlet macaws live in the forests all around. Whales, dolphins, sea turtles and whale sharks swim the fjord. You will pass endless beaches and stretches of lowland mangrove forest before reaching the Marino Ballena reserve off the tiny coastal village of Uvita on the Pacific Coast. It’s a perfect final spot. You’ll see dolphins off the beaches and whales on excursions (they arrive in the offshore waters in mid-September) and visits can be combined with a stroll through the rainforest in nearby Manoel Antonio National Park. You will stay in the modish up-and-coming Pacific Coast reef-and-rainforest destination of Uvita. Uvita is romantic – combining boutique hotel style and intimacy with middle-of-nowhere views which really immerse you in nature.

If you can tear yourselves away from the astonishing views of ocean, jungle-covered mountains and melting sunsets over the Pacific you will find  all the comforts anyone could wish for at the end of their holiday: a wonderful, relaxing spa, a first-rate restaurant and bar and a complimentary shuttle running you to the beach and back each day, or to Uvita village from where hotel staff can organise kayaking, surfing, hiking and whale watching.

Day 20- Uvita to San José International airport

After check out, you will be picked-up for your private transfer to San José International airport for your flight home