Budget Guide To Costa Rica – A High-End Destination!

Costa Rica has become an expensive destination, focusing on high-end tourism, around National Parks on the one end and “adrenaline activities” on the others.

For sure, you can backpack through the country (do not ask me how, I haven’t investigated it at all), but the many popular highlights are expensive, as is everyday life, at least in comparison to other countries in Central & South America.

On the other hand, Costa Rica is an extremely safe country, both in terms of personal safety and in term of medical safety (in how many countries can you drink tap water everywhere?).

Money / cash

No, you do not need USD in Costa Rica! True, many things are quoted in USD, but you can pay everything in Colones (CRC).

Visa & Mastercard are widely accepted (there is actually a very small minority of places where you cannot pay by Credit Card): we have made 80+ payments by credit card during our stay of 23 days, with payments as low as 4,5 €

Except if you buy fruits on the street (there are many vendors throughout the country), or for some parking places and the like, you should be able to pay everything by credit card (Tortuguero was a notable exception).

Type Of Travel

Costa Rica was the first “long” trip / road-trip we undertook with our 3 kids (aged 5, 5 & 7 at the time of travel in August 2025). So clearly, we did not try in any way to cut costs.

Of course it was no high-end trip, as we wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway… But we rented a 4WD car (which is necessary), stayed in mid-range hotels, booked guides tours to enhance our chances to spot wildlife as well as a few activities like the ziplines in Monteverde.

Itinerary & Time Of The Visit

We traveled 23 days in August 2025 and drove a 1.600 km loop starting from Alajuela (near San Jose International Airport), taking us to:

• Alajuela (3 days),
• Tortuguero (2 days),
• Puerto Viejo de Talamanca (3 days),
• La Fortuna (3 days),
• Monteverde (3 days),
• Curu Wildlife Refufe (1 day),
• Dominical (4 days),
• Tarcoles (1 day)
• And back to Alajuela (near San Jose International Airport).

Global Budget

Costa Rica has turn to an expensive country focusing on high-end tourism. If you travel on a shoestring, you might have some challenges here. But it is easily doable on a mid-range price level.

Beware that high-end options tend to be significantly more expensive than in other destinations, as Costa Rica caters for many tourists from the United States, who do not count when they enjoy their 2 weeks annual holidays.

Also keep in mind that flights to Costa Rica are extremely expensive, especially if you want to fly directly: the Air France tickets costed us no less than 6.250 € for the five of us!

Two sidenotes on this budget:

• The costs for the car rental are divided into 5 people, so you could actually consider that it is actually 27,00 € per person per day if you are 2
• The same partly applies for hotels, though we had booked larger family rooms. This is surely not completely in line with the budget we would have had if we were only two adults (significantly higher).

Accommodation

You will find everything, especially in the mid-range and high-end segment – Nonetheless, be ready to dish out 750 to 1.500 USD a night if you want 4+ stars! Yes, Costa Rica is not the place to try and splurge at a reasonable price.

At several places, we had upgraded our standards and enjoyed some superb experiences, like Colinas Secretas Glamping in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca or the Villas Rio Mar in Dominical. We also had some less good experiences as well, like the gruesome though extremely expensive accommodation within the Curu Wildlife Refuge.

Food

Local sodas are a great way of eating like the locals, sampling some nice food and not burning your budget. Beware that portions are huge, so most of the time it is better to share one dish, as there is no way of eating it all!

Note that we haven’t tried anything fancy, and there are lots of fancy options especially in the more popular places, but we wouldn’t have enjoyed them anyway with the kids…

Driving

Driving is both easy and safe in Cosa Rica. It is sometimes nerve wrecking how slowly and carefully locals drive, and I must admit I learnt to overtake even when it was not exactly foreseen as such…

Especially in the center of the country, calculate an average of 35 to max. 40 km/h, even on long distances. On the Pacific Coast, you can at times calculate with an average of 50, but that would rather be the exception.

A 4WD is absolutely necessary, even though most roads are in a good or at least reasonable condition. Nonetheless, some are not, and some are very, very steep, so at least 10 times (maybe 20), I wouldn’t have made it with a sedan car.

Beware of driving on Fridays, especially near San Jose / Alajuela and towards the Pacific (and returning from the Pacific on Sunday afternoon, obviously): traffic is completely congested, making travel time extremely high and nerve wrecking, as was our drive back from Tarcoles to the airport: we thought we would have a lot of time at hand (3.5 hours instead of 1.5) but we could not stop and had to drive back directly to return the car… Not a very nice farewell from Costa Rica!

Splurge At Reasonable Costs?

Beware that high-end options tend to be significantly more expensive than in other destinations, as Costa Rica caters for many tourists from the United States, who do not count when they enjoy their 2 weeks annual holidays. Therefore, Costa Rica might clearly not be the ideal destination for this!

Reduce Costs?

That was clearly not our goal, as mentioned above, so we did not try in any way to reduce costs…