Planning an Itinerary

 So we've decided on Costa Rica.  But where are we going to travel?  We knew we were going to go for about 8-12 days.  I got a couple of Costa Rica guide books and looked at their recommendations for itineraries.  I also searched for "10 day Costa Rica Itinerary," "Family Trip to Costa Rica Itinerary," etc. I started to collect the recommended places and piece something together. 

Before we locked too much in, however, I needed to figure out flights.  Flying at March break isn't cheap!  So I needed to look for a deal.  Which airport had the cheapest flights might help to set the itinerary.

I usually use Kayak and Google Flights when searching for flights.  We were going to fly out of Toronto.  We were flexible on dates.  School was out from Friday March 8th to Sunday March 17th.  I started searching for all of the combinations of flights starting from a few days before to a few days after March Break.  I was also searching for both airports.  So for example I searched in and out of Liberia, for March 6-17, March 6-18, March 7-17, March 7-18, March 7-19, March 8-17, March 8-18, March 8-19.  Then I did all of those searches again using the San Jose Airport.  Then I did them flying into Liberia and out of San Jose.  Then into San Jose and out of Liberia.  You better bet I had a spreadsheet!  🤣  Actually now that I think about it, I was doing this at the camp from my phone and writing it all down on a piece of paper.  Every combination!  Things to consider outside of price:

What time were the flights (for convenience of flying)?

What time were the flights in terms of landing time (roads are bad in Costa Rica and I didn't want to have to drive to our first destination after dark)

What time were the flights in terms of leaving and getting back to Toronto?  An early flight there and/or a late flight back would mean an extra night in Toronto at a hotel.

Eventually one flight popped up as significantly cheaper than the others and I couldn't figure out why!  After it went up $50 per person one night I figured, better book!  So we are driving to Toronto on Wednesday March 6th (leaving after school).  Staying overnight.  Catching an early flight to Liberia on Thursday March 7th.  And then getting an early flight home from San Jose on Monday March 18th.  We will get into Toronto early enough to drive all the way home and arrive at home around 7pm if all goes according to plan.

So now we knew the days and we had to build an itinerary that started in Liberia and ended in San Jose.  I started piecing things together and came up with this.

We are flying into Liberia Airport and will drive north to stay in Curubande.  The main activities here is exploring Rincon de la Vieja National Park and adventure tourism.  We will be exploring a beautiful river, ziplining, relaxing in volcanic hot springs, doing a hike through volcanic landscapes, and meeting friends for an amazing waterfall hike (more on that later).  

From there we will head to the Pacific Cost to Playa Hermosa.  We are staying there for 4 nights.  Our AirBNB is right on the beach and howler monkeys hang out in the trees!  During those 4 days we will take a snorkeling/sailboat trip and spend a day at Playa Coco, take a side trip south to Tamarindo to learn how to surf and go on an ocean fishing trip!  

Then we head east to Monteverde.  Monteverde is a cloud forest and will be significantly cooler than the places we will have been.  In Monteverde, we hike in the cloud forest, do a waterfall hike that ends with horseback riding, have a sunset dinner with friends (more on that later), and ziplining over the cloud forest!

Last stop is La Fortuna, home to Arenal Volcano.  Here we will do a hike in a reserve where wild sloths live, we will do a twilight hanging bridges hike to hopefully see some wildlife/critters after dark, we will spend some time at a waterfall, do a volcano view hike, spend an evening at some volcanic hot springs, and then end our time on our last day with a tubing adventure down the river.

We will head to a hotel for our last night that's near the San Jose Airport so we can catch our early flight home.

Can't wait for all of the adventures!