• 4 Dinner (D)
• 8 Breakfast (B)
• 2 Lunch (L)

• San José: Enter the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum before opening with your Local Expert. You’ll view gold pendants and figurines shaped into animal forms alongside ceremonial pieces that show how metalwork signalled identity and belief.
• La?Paz Cloud Forest: Walk through a reforested section of cloud forest with Edwin Ramírez as he explains how restoration is planned and maintained on this terrain. You’ll hear how persistent mist and elevation shape cloud forest conditions, and why protecting these habitats is linked to biodiversity and water systems beyond the region.

Insight Vacations

• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays
• Deluxe coach travel

Meet your Travel Director and small group over a welcome dinner in San José. It is a hosted opportunity to get to know the people sharing your journey and hear more about the places you will explore across Costa Rica.

The capital sits in the Central Valley between volcanic highlands. Its 19th-century coffee wealth helped shape the civic buildings and cultural institutions that give central San José its character today.

Enter the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum before opening with a Local Expert in central San José. Examine intricate pendants, animal-shaped figurines and ceremonial pieces while learning what their designs reveal about the people who made and used them.

This collection offers a close look at Costa Rica’s pre-Columbian metalworking traditions. The early access provides space to appreciate the detail of the objects and consider how gold could express identity, status and belief.

Walk through central San José to see Plaza de la Cultura and the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica, completed in 1897. Continue to Plaza de la Democracia y de la Abolición, the National Museum of Costa Rica and Parque Nacional.

The route brings together the capital’s public squares, cultural landmarks and political history. Look for the contrast between the theatre’s ornate architecture and the former fortress that houses the National Museum, a reminder of Costa Rica’s decision to abolish its army.

Visit Randall and Doña Aradina at their home near San José and walk through their orchid garden together. See a variety of orchids and tropical plants, and hear directly from the family about the care involved in growing them in Costa Rica’s climate.

Share lunch in the garden pavilion for a personal introduction to local hospitality. The experience pairs a close look at cultivated tropical plants with conversation in a family setting rather than a conventional restaurant.

Explore Sarchí’s artisan workshops in Costa Rica’s Central Valley, where craftspeople build and hand-paint traditional oxcarts, or carretas. Browse small studios producing carved and painted woodwork, and see the landmark oxcart in the town’s central park.

Sarchí is closely associated with the vividly patterned carts once used to carry coffee through the countryside. Their decorative painting remains a distinctive expression of Costa Rican craftsmanship, giving the workshop visit a connection to both working history and living tradition.

Harvest seasonal produce and join a cooking workshop at an organic farm in the La Fortuna area. Learn about sustainable growing methods, see sugar cane pressed at the traditional trapiche and prepare a local dish using ingredients gathered during your visit.

Share a farm-to-table meal shaped by what is growing on the property. This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience connects Costa Rican food to the work of cultivation and supports more responsible approaches to producing and consuming it.

Trace cacao from plant to chocolate in La Fortuna on one of two included Insight Choice activities. Learn how cacao is grown, fermented and dried, and how each stage helps develop the flavours found in the finished product.

Discover the origins of traditional chocolate drinks and taste organic chocolate as part of the experience. This hands-on choice offers a food-focused way to explore a crop with deep roots in Central American culture; the alternative included choice is a zipline adventure.

Ride a safari truck to the zipline course in the hills above La Fortuna, then travel along 11 cables strung between platforms. From the lines and elevated stops, take in views across the Arenal region’s forest and farmland.

This is one of two included Insight Choice activities, offering an active perspective on a landscape shaped by volcanic terrain. Travellers who prefer a food-focused experience can choose the included cacao and chocolate activity instead.

Join a guided nature walk through rainforest habitat in the La Fortuna and Arenal region. Look closely at the plant life around you and learn how warmth, frequent rain and volcanic soils help shape this richly layered environment.

Your guide explains how those conditions support birds, insects, mammals and amphibians, even when wildlife remains hidden in the vegetation. The walk offers a grounded introduction to the living rainforest ecosystem, with time to observe details that are easy to miss from the roadside.

Walk a reforested section of cloud forest at Canto del Río in La Paz de San Ramón with naturalist Edwin Ramírez. Hear how restoration is planned and maintained on his privately managed property, and observe the terrain where the young forest is taking shape.

Persistent mist and highland elevation create conditions for a distinctive web of plants and wildlife. Edwin’s perspective links hands-on forest restoration with the wider importance of these habitats for biodiversity and regional water systems.

Cross six hanging bridges with a naturalist in Monteverde’s cloud forest, rising as high as 50 metres above the forest floor. Walk forest trails and look into different canopy layers, where moss-covered branches, orchids and other epiphytes thrive in the persistent mist.

The bridges offer an unusual vantage point for observing this highland habitat. Watch and listen for hummingbirds, bellbirds and resplendent quetzals; monkeys and coatis may also be seen, though wildlife sightings cannot be guaranteed.

Cruise the Bebedero River by boat through a wetland corridor in north-west Costa Rica. Scan overhanging branches, muddy banks and open margins for water birds, reptiles and mammals as the boat moves between river forest and wider wetland scenery.

These Guanacaste lowlands have a different character from Costa Rica’s misty highlands. Travelling at water level gives you a close view of the river’s changing habitats and the wildlife that uses its banks for shelter and feeding.

Join your Travel Director and small group for a farewell dinner in Tamarindo. Share a hosted evening together in this Pacific-coast town, with time to exchange stories from the rainforests, cloud forest and wetlands explored across Costa Rica.

Tamarindo’s coastal setting provides a change of atmosphere from the country’s interior highlands. The dinner is a chance to mark the journey as a group and enjoy one final shared occasion before departing from the Guanacaste region.

Take a morning catamaran tour from the Tamarindo area for time on Costa Rica’s Pacific waters and a snorkelling opportunity. Enjoy views of the Guanacaste coastline from the boat and explore beneath the surface where conditions allow.

This organised outing offers a water-based alternative to time ashore in the beach town. Marine conditions and sightings vary, making the coastal scenery and time at sea part of the appeal. This Optional Experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.