Accommodations

There are plenty of accommodations around San Jose including a Hampton Inn right near the airport. However, almost no one stays in San Jose unless they arrive at night and have no transportation. Most everyone gets out of town as fast as they can, usually staying in quaint hotels if they arrive in late afternoon. There is nothing actually wrong with San Jose as a city. It's actually rather interesting compared to other large cities in the American tropics. It's just that no one interested in natural history would choose to stay there. However, with several airlines arriving at night, there may be good reason to find a place to stay around San Jose.

If one arrives at the San Jose airport around midday (Juan Santamaria International Airport), it is possible to get either a shuttle or a rental car in which to get to any accommodations that may be 2-3 hours out of the metropolitan area.  If you have coordinated a shuttle from Costa Rica Gateways in advance, they will meet you at the airport and you can be off quickly. A shuttle could drive you a few hours to Rancho Naturalista, Selva Verde Lodge, or some specific destination mapped out in advance. If, on the other hand, you are renting a car at the San Jose airport, you should add about an hour working through the details of car rental before you'll be able to drive out on your own. There's nothing difficult about car rental at the airport, but you may encounter a small line of people ahead of you working through their own paperwork at the car rental counter.

For individuals arriving at night, and for some tour groups, two places stand out. Many people stay at the Orquideas Hotel in San Jose, not terribly far from the airport and it's more Costa Rican in flavor than, say, a Hampton Inn. For most people, the Holiday Inn Express and the Hampton Inn (both 5-minute drives from the airport) are perfectly fine. Both hotels are in the same area with an accompanying Denny's Restaurant. Both have shuttles to the airport every half hour. Remember, you're just going to spend a few hours in a bed. You're not there for the ambiance.

I also frequently read of birders staying at the more rural, but very nice, Hotel Bougainvillea about a 30 minute drive from the airport (I stayed there myself in the early 90s, but it looks like a better place now). If you happen to be staying at Hotel Bougainvillea or close by on your first morning, I discovered that someone actually created a list of birds seen around Hotel Bougainvillea over about a five-year period. You can access that web page here.

Rancho Naturalista, south of San Jose

A friend of mine has also stayed at the Poas Volcano Lodge and enjoyed his brief stay there - which is about 1 hour from the airport.

For some of the best birding lodges throughout Costa Rica that cater to birders, I recommend looking over the lodges on the Costa Rica Gateway web site. 

Accommodations at Arrival Points: Liberia

Flying into Liberia, Costa Rica, for the average traveler, usually presumes some sort of beach destination since one is only 30-45 minutes away from the ocean. This isn't always the case, but that appears to be the case for most incoming tourists. Birders can take advantage of this too, but they also have other options in the mountains close to Liberia. If your plane arrives late, you can stay at the very close Hilton Garden Inn (which has airport shuttles) or the Best Western Hotel Las Espuelas within Liberia and just a cheap cab fare from the airport. If you have time to get your car, there are a few foothill lodges near Rincon de Vieja National Park, such as Hacienda Guachipelin, which is about 30 minutes towards the volcanic mountain range northeast of Liberia. There are also foothill accommodations near Bijuagua (Alajuela Province) about 1.5 hours from Liberia including the La Carolina Lodge and the Heliconias Lodge. I should also mention La Ensenada Lodge where some birding tour groups go to pick up Guanacaste specialty birds and several wetland species - about 1.25 hours south of Liberia. Of all the places I mention here, only Heliconias Lodge and La Ensenada truly cater to birdwatchers.

There are literally hundreds of places to stay on the west coast. I've listed a few places near the bottom of this page, but it's hard to give any of them a full endorsement since several of the places I've stayed have changed hands since 2000. Just know that there are plenty to choose from if you aren't demanding a birding lodge. Costs vary, but it's usually between $60-300 a night for a 2-4 star place on the beach. The higher-end places are resorts catering to Americans. Some have golf courses, some casinos, and some cater to families. Needless to say, we avoid the true up-scale resorts. In summer, it's not particularly critical to have a reservation except at the very best places.

"Neighborhood" Birds of Guanacaste Beach Areas and Dry Woodlands

Like a standard breakfast, a Guanacaste "coastal" experience will usually provide you with some standard bird sightings each day. An hour in the morning around some secondary forest or coastal habitat can produce the following birds: Magnificent Frigatebird, Brown Pelican, Mangrove Black-Hawk, Orange-chinned Parakeet, Orange-fronted Parakeet. Inca Dove, Common ground-Dove, Groove-billed Ani, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Black-headed Trogon, Hoffmann's Woodpecker, Turquoise-browed Motmot, Tropical Kingbird, Great Kiskadee, Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, Banded Wren, Rufous-naped Wren, White-throated Magpie Jay, Stripe-headed Sparrow, Blue Grosbeak, Blue-black Grassquit, Variable Seedeater, and Streak-backed Oriole. These birds can usually be found in rural habitat anywhere in Guanacaste.

On other days, we observed a Bare-throated Tiger Heron near the Playa del Coco beach, and a White-necked Puffbird hung out all day on a telephone wire over the road. Birds like Keel-billed Toucans, on the other hand, are generally not found in coastal Guanacaste but can usually be found in the mountains east of Liberia. Also, if you're not driving, many of the hotels offer day tours to Monteverde and other areas where eastern slope and montane birds can be found. These are are highly organized tourist-style bus tours, so don't expect much time to birdwatch.

There are some very specific birds in Guanacaste that you might not see elsewhere (Turquoise-browed Motmot, Black-headed Trogon, White-throated Magpie Jay, etc.)  that you might be able to pick up in an hour or two in the morning if you arrived in Liberia but hadn't planned to stay long in that area.

There is an on-going debate on the exact definition of what constitutes an "ecolodge". You can read about that debate here.

Bosque del Rio Tigre Lodge, Osa Peninsula

For the sake of simplicity, however, ecolodges are usually community-supported, low impact lodges with basic accommodations. There are also a growing number of upscale ecolodges. Costa Rica has both and most are within close proximity to good birding habitat. A few, like Tirimbina and Heliconias Lodge, I have already mentioned on this site in the "Habitats" section. A few of these ecolodges have been reviewed by travelers who stayed there at one time or another. You can look these reviews up at Trip Advisor.com and type in a search for the particular lodge.

Although some of these lodges are not on any of the larger travel itineraries for birders, I suspect many of them are as good for birding as the more well-known lodges. I have limited personal experience with these places and they are not recommendations per se, but all of them have been mentioned by publications or web-based hyperlinks as potentially good birding experiences. Most are supported by ACTUAR - a part of the tourism industry of Costa Rica which supports rural, community-based accommodations for tourists and travelers. Most (but not all) are less expensive alternatives to other birding lodges mentioned here. A few are upscale alternatives

For the adventurous spirit who is renting a car, these places could be good alternatives to the more mainstream birding locations in Costa Rica. Be alert, however, to road conditions at some of these remote locations.

A website for Adventure Hotels of Costa Rica also lists some more moderate accommodations that could still be within easy reach of your particular destination.

Also of Note: The Costa Rica Bird Route - A driving route created for the low-impact birding tourist. Several important ecolodges are on this route. This is a good website with a variety of resources. Accommodations are sparse at some of these locations and driving conditions vary, but these lodges have been singled out for their birding, their value to the community, and their largely low-impact cost to the environment.

Accommodations: Lodges that Specifically Cater to Birders

The following lodges are fairly common destinations for many birders, and you will see at least some of them on almost every birding trip report. Most of them adjoin or are at least very close to good birding habitat. Most of these lodges (as well as most of the ecolodges above) are discussed in detail in the book, Finding Birds in Costa Rica by Barrett Lawson.

Accommodations: Beaches

For catching some rays and trying to enjoy the Pacific beaches and birds simultaneously, we've stayed at several places. Places I've stayed and enjoyed include Tulemar and Makanda by the Sea at Manuel Antonio (south-central Costa Rica), Guanamar in central Nicoya, and Hotel Playa Hermosa in northern Guanacaste. These are very different places from each other, but all were on the beach, fairly quiet, and all had good service. None of them were "resorts" - no spas, no tennis courts, no golf courses, no gambling. Nor did they actually cater to birders. I mention them only because they were fairly quiet with some natural surroundings. In coastal Costa Rica, it is difficult to make recommendations since hotels change hands rather quickly on the beachfront, and hotel construction can be an on-going problem that changes from year-to-year.

I recommend looking through Trip Advisor.com (http://www.tripadvisor.com/) to look at reviews of any hotels in which you are going to stay. Nearly every place has a few reviews from recent customers.

As an example of how things can change, we used to stay at Hotel Ocotal near Playa del Coco about 35 minutes from Liberia. In a matter of three years, it changed from a great place to below-average because of construction and poor service. For all I know, it might be back to being a good place to stay. I would probably rely on the trip advisor web site to tell me that.

Accommodations: Small, Upscale Ecolodges

The small, upscale ecolodge appears to be an idea catching on in Costa Rica, Two very birdy places come to mind: Oxygen Jungle Lodge and Monte Azul. Both of these lodges are very small boutique hotels with excellent birding habitat. Although, neither hotel really caters to birders, both lodges have landscaped for the maximum wildlife experience.

Oxygen Jungle Lodge (left) is a "couples only" lodge in the foothills near Uvita and has ocean views. Between $149-189 a night, it's not terribly expensive and the overall luxury value of a stay here is huge (see Trip Advisor). In this small but gorgeous setting, you could likely pick up 50 species within 30 meters of the dining area during the course of the day. You will also have access to several surrounding areas that could maximize the experience - Oro Verde and Hacienda Baru are less than 30 minutes, Talari Lodge and Los Cusingos are within two hours, and even the Osa Peninsula is less than a three hour drive. Since it's a couples only lodge (children are not allowed), only a lucky few will get a chance at staying there. We stayed there in 2010.

Monte Azul is a gorgeous boutique hotel in the mountains above San Isidro (1000 meters). The trails here are more extensive than Oxygen Jungle Lodge and are landscaped for optimum birdwatching. The Turquoise Cotinga may be a better possibility here than most other locations, and like Oxygen, birds creep around the dining hall like moving Christmas lights (Silver-throated Tanager, Speckled Tanager, Stripe-headed Brush-Finch, Orange-billed Sparrow, etc.). This unique ecolodge uses local resources, produces much of its own food, and grows its own coffee.