Posted: 7/28/2024 9:58:44 AM EDT
[Last Edit: ROCK6][Edited]
So, my wife is pretty set to plan our adventure for next year. You rent a 4x4 with rooftop tent and camping kit for a 10-day tour around Costa Rica. Other than the plane tickets, it's around $1000 for the whole 10-days minus food, incidentals and shopping money. She really wants to get into the remote areas, hike to waterfalls, and remote beach camping. Anyone experience something like this or at least do some more remote activities in Costa Rica? We're pretty experienced backpackers and have been doing quite a bit of "boondock" roof/trailer top tent camping. It's just our style for vacations Long video, but pretty cool journey from a couple doing an overlanding tour in Costa Rica...  Exploring the BEST of Costa Rica living in a 4x4 vehicle - see before going! ROCK6 |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Originally Posted By XM21Nick: Don’t know anything about it but from your pic that rental vehicle in the salt water will be rusted junk in no time . Yeah, I'm sure they go through them... |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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All I van tell you is the jungle near the beach there is FUCKING HOT. Like amazing wildlife but I needed to sleep for several hours after we got back from a few hours hiking in it. Would not have been awesome in my book to have to sleep there. With a bit of elevation its a lot more pleasant. |
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My girlfriend and I are going in October. We're older and like AC so we're renting a slightly more equipped vehicle... Attached File Since you are experienced overlanders, you are probably familiar with IOverlander plenty of wild camping spots to be found. Also some campgrounds scattered about with facilities. I haven't been yet, but have done an awful lot of homework so feel free to dm any questions you might have. If I've found an answer, I'll share. |
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Originally Posted By Grunteled: All I van tell you is the jungle near the beach there is FUCKING HOT. Like amazing wildlife but I needed to sleep for several hours after we got back from a few hours hiking in it. Would not have been awesome in my book to have to sleep there. With a bit of elevation its a lot more pleasant. Originally Posted By Grunteled: All I van tell you is the jungle near the beach there is FUCKING HOT. Like amazing wildlife but I needed to sleep for several hours after we got back from a few hours hiking in it. Would not have been awesome in my book to have to sleep there. With a bit of elevation its a lot more pleasant. Yeah, we're tracking the heat. A lot of our camping and backpacking is in the heat and humidity of the summer due to my wife's schedule. We spent a week in the Keys in our roof top tent, but yeah, it's just part of the experience! Originally Posted By Rook1069: My girlfriend and I are going in October. We're older and like AC so we're renting a slightly more equipped vehicle... https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/464099/rs_w_1209_h_907_jpeg-3284318.JPG Since you are experienced overlanders, you are probably familiar with IOverlander plenty of wild camping spots to be found. Also some campgrounds scattered about with facilities. I haven't been yet, but have done an awful lot of homework so feel free to dm any questions you might have. If I've found an answer, I'll share. Older? We're only in our early to mid 50's so not young bucks, but no old yet  My wife is putting together some itinerary options, so it would be nice to compare notes. Our dates will be mid-June, hope to not get too much of the rainy season. We're not really experienced overlanders but we do a quite a bit of "boondocking" with my wife's rooftop tent and Woolly Bear utility trailer. Will be interesting to see where you plan to go...will DM as you could be our recon team ROCK6 |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Originally Posted By Rook1069: I'm 55 with the beetus, she's 60 with breathing issues That's still pretty cool you guys are going...looking forward to your updates! ROCK6 |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Originally Posted By ROCK6: That's still pretty cool you guys are going...looking forward to your updates! ROCK6 We'll see at least two volcanoes, watch sea turtles laying eggs on the carribean coast, swim under a few waterfalls, ride atvs, hike, tour a coffee plantation, visit corcovado park, camp in the mountains, camp on the beach, and visit the gold museum in San Jose. My map says we're only driving 756 miles in 14 days, so there should be plenty of time for random chaos. |
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Originally Posted By Rook1069: We'll see at least two volcanoes, watch sea turtles laying eggs on the carribean coast, swim under a few waterfalls, ride atvs, hike, tour a coffee plantation, visit corcovado park, camp in the mountains, camp on the beach, and visit the gold museum in San Jose. My map says we're only driving 756 miles in 14 days, so there should be plenty of time for random chaos. Yeah, we just decided to bump ours to 12 days to give us a little cushion or if we just want an extra day at the beach. Looks like most of our itinerary plans are going to be on the Pacific side. We are planning several waterfall hikes... ROCK6 |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Glad I came across this thread. Already mentioned this kind of trip to my wife and am looking at dates early Spring. @Rook1069 are you going through Nomad America or another rental company? |
Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Charles Reade
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Originally Posted By cmw: @Rook1069 are you going through Nomad America or another rental company? https://costaricaoverlanding.com All the others I found only had roof top tents or basic 4x2 vans. The truck we're renting is lifted and on 33's. Also has ac, kitchen, shower, and generator. |
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Originally Posted By cmw: Glad I came across this thread. Already mentioned this kind of trip to my wife and am looking at dates early Spring. @Rook1069 are you going through Nomad America or another rental company? Originally Posted By cmw: Glad I came across this thread. Already mentioned this kind of trip to my wife and am looking at dates early Spring. @Rook1069 are you going through Nomad America or another rental company? We've been talking with Nomad America which is looking like the route we plan to go. Originally Posted By asystejs: Skip the camping part and stay in hotels Meh, might as well stay home...when we're old and lose out adventuresome spirit, we'll do the resort and hotel trips. ROCK6 |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Awesome! |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Ok, we're a week in. Monday: Flew into San Jose, our truck was delivered to us at the airport. Went to walmart for some supplies, then camped at a restaurant near poas volcano with a view of San Jose and 4 other towns. Tuesday: Visited Poas, only a 800 meter hike the crater. Then drove to la povona to catch a boat to toruguerra, had a vrbo for one night there(no roads in). Went and saw green sea turtles laying eggs. Wednesday: Back to povona and the truck, then on to Las Lomas where we camped beaide a waterfall and had the place to ourselves all night. Skinny dipped in waterfall pool. Thursday, Went for tour of largest coffee plantation in CR, then checked out Guayabo national monument, a pre columbian settlement. Never could get up with anyone at our planned camping spot, went there anyway but the gate was locked, so found another place. Friday, had to wait for owner of the truck to come replace the strut we broke the evening before, so missed a couple of planned stops, but made it to Uvita. Saturday, went on an atv tour and visited a local waterfall, rhen back to camp and stroll on the beach. Sunday, went whale watching and saw humpback whales and spotted dolphins, came back to camp and got drone shots of macaws. Heading out to Manuel Antonio today for a guided hike. |
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Originally Posted By Rook1069: https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/464099/20241022_101607_jpg-3356099.JPG Thanks @Rook1069, my wife will love the pictures! |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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Originally Posted By Rook1069: Ok, we're a week in. Monday: Flew into San Jose, our truck was delivered to us at the airport. Went to walmart for some supplies, then camped at a restaurant near poas volcano with a view of San Jose and 4 other towns. Tuesday: Visited Poas, only a 800 meter hike the crater. Then drove to la povona to catch a boat to toruguerra, had a vrbo for one night there(no roads in). Went and saw green sea turtles laying eggs. Wednesday: Back to povona and the truck, then on to Las Lomas where we camped beaide a waterfall and had the place to ourselves all night. Skinny dipped in waterfall pool. Thursday, Went for tour of largest coffee plantation in CR, then checked out Guayabo national monument, a pre columbian settlement. Never could get up with anyone at our planned camping spot, went there anyway but the gate was locked, so found another place. Friday, had to wait for owner of the truck to come replace the strut we broke the evening before, so missed a couple of planned stops, but made it to Uvita. Saturday, went on an atv tour and visited a local waterfall, rhen back to camp and stroll on the beach. Sunday, went whale watching and saw humpback whales and spotted dolphins, came back to camp and got drone shots of macaws. Heading out to Manuel Antonio today for a guided hike. Awesome! Manuel Antonio is on our itinerary...but my wife is tweaking it weekly Given the start of the rainy season, we are adding in some "branch and sequel" planning to try an account for weather interruptions.Good to hear how responsive they were to getting your truck fixed. Just part of the risk and experience ROCK6 |
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson
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@ROCK6 Monday: So Manuel Antonio is a must see, and I recommend doing a guided tour. You can stay in the park after the guide is done, but they will find things you'd never see. Ours had a good spotting scope, and took great pictures through it so we could focus on experiencing the place. 50 meters into the park we met our first sloth, just a couple of feet from the trail, who just happened to be making her weekly climb down to the ground for a potty break, where of course she go no privacy at all. Then we saw 2 kinds of basilisks, one was the so called Jesus Crist lizard that runs across water. A fir de lance snake(most poisonous in CR), a few birds, squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys. Land crabs, tree crabs and hermit crabs. Then off to our campsite on the beach. Tuesday, we enjoyed an easy drive and a visit to a cacao farm and learned all about making chocolate before heading to the Tarcoles area. Wednesday we had a crocodile tour on a boat where we got up close and personal with a bunch of gnarly beasts and saw some pretty cool birds too. Then we drove to our amazing garden camp spot near Monteverde. Thursday we went ziplining in Monteverde, including 1 superman style zip that was nearly a mile long, over a cloud forest valley. Then a good long drive around Lake Arenal to our campsite on a hill behind El Castillo, overlooking the lake and volcano. Friday we went horseback riding and hiked to a secluded waterfall, then drove towards rio agro where we had planned to park outside a restaurant. Before we got there, I saw a sign for a place call La Presa which offered casinas and camping, so decided to camp there instead and had electricity so we wouldn't need to run the generator. Saturday, we broke camp and headed to Caterata del Toro, but sadly I'm a moron and missed my turn leaving the camping place and wound up on a really rough and rutted trail between cow pastures. After bouncing the hitch on a couple of steep departures, I saw a gate in the fence and decided to use that space to turn around. Well, 4 hours later, the farmer who owned the land, and the camping place, who's own tractor had a flat tire, borrowed a neighbor's tractor and pulled us out of his deceptively slippery pasture. So we stayed at that camp place another night since our day was shot. Sunday, we wanted to go the waterfalls we missed on Saturday, but they're on private property and it was closed on Sundays. So we went our original schedule for Sunday and drove into San Jose to see the gold museum.(not really worth the price of admission, btw) I didn't notice my girlfriend was wearing her favorite necklace and pendant, a chunky Egyptian cartouche she had gotten on a trip to Egypt with her late father. But on the way back to our parking spot, one of the local punks noticed and snatched it off her neck and ran. That was the first negative interaction we had in Costa Rica. A tico woman pulled up immediately, mad as hell because she saw what happened. She called the police for us, and even gave them some grainy video of the punk running off. Another man pulled up while the police were there and he owned the parking lot across from where we were parked, and directly across from where the stealing happened, and told them he had it on his video camera. So we go to the police station to file a report, and then head to our last night of camping in CR. Monday was not so exciting, we drove to the airport and returned the camper truck, then flew back to Florida. |
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I have been following this couple since when they were going across Canada heading to Alaska to do the Pan-America... This might give a little insight for Costa Rica... Their travels through South America especially Peru was awesome!  OVERLAND COSTA RICA travel FILM |