The 63 Best Places in Costa Rica

The fastest way in is a charter prop plane from San José, eight seats, thirty minutes, and suddenly you're in the Talamanca Mountains. The spa here is part of a wider wellness program on a 180-acre hacienda, ranging from aura cleansing to the Estée Lauder Skin Longevity Institute, which is a sentence that could only exist in 2024. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world. Couples who e-bike before noon and book the therapeutic sauna for after lunch seem to find their people here.

San José's Conservatorium runs a proper R&D lab where ideas get tested before they reach the table, which tells you something about the mood of the kitchen. It's a creative fine-dining restaurant with dry-aged steaks and a pastry chef who leans into his Asian heritage for the sweet courses. The team has a spot on Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants list, and the ambition in the cooking makes that easy to believe.

Canopy Suites sit on stilts in the treetops with private infinity pools, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ambitions here. This Forbes Five Star resort on a scenic hilltop above the Pacific mixes rose stucco buildings and thatched pavilions with an Arnold Palmer golf course, a sprawling spa, and several restaurants. Howler monkeys provide the ambient noise, and the Pacific breezes do the rest.

Each of the 35 adults-only villas at this jungle resort sits over a spring-fed private plunge pool, with volcanic mud treatments at an open-air spa and Arenal's canopy right outside. Honeymooners fill most of the hammocks, but anyone who wants to disappear into a national park without giving up the oversized bathroom has found the right address. Michelin awarded it 3 Keys and Forbes a Four Star rating.

Cloud forest so dense the lodge will send an eco-concierge to help you find your way through it. El Silencio is a jungle resort about 90 minutes from San José where green credentials and high-thread-count sheets coexist without apology: solar power, natural cleaning products, private hot tubs. The spa sits beside a creek, the restaurant leans on organic produce grown on site, and there's no red meat on the menu, though they'll quietly hand you a voucher if the zip-lining changes your mind.

A suspension bridge across a jungle ravine is how you reach some of the rooms, which tells you most of what you need to know about how this Ritz-Carlton Reserve resort operates. Treetop villas hover above the forest floor on Costa Rica's Papagayo Peninsula, while a funicular drops guests to the beach club below. Multiple pools, a sprawling spa, and a lineup of restaurants fill the gaps between surfing, sailing, and a full Arnold Palmer golf course nearby.

Open-air check-in with Culebra Bay spread out below you sets the tone for this Pacific coast resort on the Papagayo Peninsula, a Michelin Key and Forbes Four Star property where the villas, designed by Costa Rican architect Ronald Zürcher, curve like shells into a 28-acre hillside forest. A single staff member handles your arrival, golf-cart transfer, and everything after. The bars and pools are where the place actually lives.

Each of the 21 villas at this adults-only cliffside boutique hotel comes with a private saltwater plunge pool and a hammock aimed at the Pacific, which makes leaving genuinely difficult. Las Catalinas was designed from scratch to need no cars, so the mood stays quiet. The central infinity pool has an outdoor bar and in-water fire pits that light up at sunset, which is when everyone stops pretending they had other plans. Michelin awarded it 2 Keys.

The pool runs over 130 feet long, a house DJ works the deck after dark, and the mangrove forest presses right up against the suites. El Mangroove is a boutique resort on Papagayo Bay, 85 suites fitted in natural wood and stone, with a staff-to-guest ratio that makes crowds by the water essentially impossible. It holds a Forbes Four Star. The airport is 20 minutes away, which makes the "quick Costa Rica escape" fantasy considerably more plausible.

Plunge pools come standard with every casita and villa at this rainforest resort inside Arenal Volcano National Park, which sets a certain tone early. Nayara Gardens sits at the kind of altitude where the canopy stretches out below your terrace and the volcano fills the rest of the view. Between ziplines, river rafting, and volcano treks, the outdoor shower barely gets used. Multiple restaurants cover the range from Costa Rican to Asian-inspired.

You can arrive by Jeep, but most guests choose to show up soaking wet after a whitewater raft through the jungle, luggage sealed in a dry bag. That's the tone Pacuare Lodge sets from the start. This remote eco-lodge holds nineteen suites and villas with canopied beds, tiled open-air bathrooms, and hammock terraces over the river. Wi-fi exists only in the lobby, which the staff frames as a feature. Dinner, if you like, is reached by zip line. Michelin awarded it 2 Keys.

Twenty steel-and-concrete bungalows on stilts above two river gorges, connected by elevated walkways and strung with hammocks, in a dwarf forest most people drive straight past on the way to the beach. Rio Perdido is a sustainably built resort in the remote San Bernardo Lowlands, earning two Michelin Keys, where the hotel tucks itself into the landscape rather than the other way around. Thermal waters and hiking trails sit just outside the door.

Five stilted cabins on an Osa Peninsula hillside, each with a choice of ocean view, rainforest view, or the nerve to ask for both. This small eco-resort takes its environmental commitments seriously enough that the rainwater gets recaptured for the gardens, and the mahi-mahi comes from local fishermen rather than a distributor. Scarlet macaws are a plausible dining companion at the open-air restaurant, which runs on your schedule, not a fixed seating time.

The name comes from the Hebrew word for fire, and the hotel commits to the bit: lava-stone soaking tubs, blackened wood furniture, and a fireplace where guests are invited to cast their intentions into the flames. It holds a Michelin Key. This rainforest retreat outside Nosara offers jungle baths, canopy-level balconies, and a three-tiered pool, with a shuttle to Guiones Beach for anyone who runs out of excuses to stay put.

Sloths in the canopy and toucans at breakfast: this boutique hotel on Costa Rica's southern Caribbean coast earns its setting rather than just borrowing it. A family project built around an artist's eye, it mixes colorful, boldly furnished suites with more rustic bungalows and a five-bedroom house for larger groups. The open-air restaurant leans into Afro-Caribbean cooking, and the beach club is a short walk from a genuinely quiet stretch of sand. Michelin named it a Key property.

The glass-enclosed rain shower isn't tucked into the bathroom; it sits in the middle of the suite, which tells you everything about the mood Kura is going for. This adults-only boutique hotel on Costa Rica's Pacific coast pairs tropical minimalist design with teak, slate, and a saltwater infinity pool above the tree canopy. Marino Ballena national park is minutes away for whale-watching or surfing. It holds a Michelin Key.

Thatched-roof bungalows perched on a ridge above the Osa Peninsula, with no phones, no televisions, and walls that open to the rainforest breeze instead of air conditioning. This eco-lodge sits inside Costa Rica's last lowland tropical rainforest, and the whole operation runs on the principle that the landscape is the amenity. Board is included, excursions range from self-guided walks to dolphin swims, and the deck views over the Pacific make doing nothing feel productive.

Five circular lodges perch in the mountainous interior of northern Costa Rica, each with a fire-heated hot tub on the terrace and a panoramic sweep of rainforest, Lake Nicaragua, and distant volcanoes. It's a luxury lodge that earns its "origins" name by making the jungle the whole point, from horseback tours to nighttime wildlife walks. Jean-Luc L'Hourre runs the kitchen. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

The directions up the mountain begin with "just after the highway ends" and only get more specific from there, which tells you something about this adults-only rainforest resort on Costa Rica's southern coast. Two hundred and fifty private acres, never more than twenty guests, and the elevation is calibrated precisely to keep nights cool and mosquitoes absent. A Michelin Key property, with villas built into the canopy twenty feet above their own gardens.

The casitas here sit on a private tapir reserve bordering Tenorio Volcano National Park, which sets the tone immediately. This jungle hotel runs more elegantly than the average eco-lodge, with wraparound rainforest decks, outdoor showers alongside proper bathrooms, a spa, riverside yoga, and a swim-up bar for when the wilderness feels like enough. A Michelin Key recognizes it. The surrounding trails, the electric-blue Rio Celeste, and Arenal's hot springs are right outside.

Gallery-white walls and warehouse windows sit a hundred paces from Playa Guiones, one of Costa Rica's most-surfed stretches of coast. This 25-room boutique hotel holds a Michelin Key, and the rooms run more polished than the beachy surroundings suggest, each with a private balcony or open-air living room and an outdoor shower. A fitness studio, yoga programming, surf school, and an open-air restaurant rounding out a setup that treats wellness as a floor, not a marketing word.

Jim Banks surfboards come with every suite, which tells you a lot about who this boutique hotel near Playa Guiones is for. Each of the nine residences has two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a washer-dryer for the beach towels, but al fresco breakfast and a rooftop infinity pool mean nobody actually has to cook. Toucans show up in the trees outside the living rooms. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Exposed brick and parquet floors greet you in the lobby of this boutique-ish downtown hotel, which lends out bicycles and means it. A rooftop garden, Chesterfield sofas, and a vintage neon sign give it an industrial-chic feel without trying too hard. The 91 rooms run simple and clean upstairs. Breakfast is included, the fitness center is there if you need it, and the Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. San José is often a stopover, but this one makes the stop easy.

Perched above the Valle del Sol with city lights flickering in the distance, this boutique hotel sits a thirty-minute drive west of downtown San José in the mountains, which is most of its appeal. Rooms channel the golden age of Costa Rican coffee culture: leather chairs, Art Nouveau headboards, Indian cotton linens, and private terraces big enough to actually use. The Spanish colonial meets poured-concrete interior is an unlikely pairing that the place commits to fully.

The garden terrace sets the mood at this Italian restaurant in Santa Ana, where the menu reads like a Roman trattoria but the seafood section quietly belongs to Costa Rica. Ossobuco and pizza al taglio share space with local sea bream, corvina, and jumbo shrimp pulled from nearby waters. It's the kind of place that earns its crowd through the gap between what's expected and what actually arrives.

Chicharrones here are meatier and more substantial than most you'll find elsewhere in Latin America, and that alone tells you what kind of place this is: a beloved chicharronera in the hills of Aserrí where locals gather the way Ticos gather at any good party, with limes, tortillas, black bean puree, and Salsa Lizano close at hand. Come with a group, order big, and expect cold Imperials alongside the kind of afternoon that runs longer than planned.

A rustic wood cabin near Poás Volcano that draws hikers and locals alike for daytime Costa Rican cooking. Coffee comes first, naturally, then the casado, a loaded plate of rice, beans, eggs, cheese, salad, and stewed meat that functions as both breakfast and reason enough to detour off the volcano road. Gallo pinto, stuffed tortillas, and arepas round out a menu built entirely around what people in this country have always eaten.

Cuts of chateaubriand and Brazilian picanha share the menu with octopus over cassava "charcoal" and jumbo shrimp with garden poppies, which gives you a sense of how Furca operates. It's a steakhouse, but one that takes Costa Rican ingredients seriously alongside the global red-meat playbook. Sides run from blackened yucca to grilled asparagus, and the wine list stays in the Americas. Dressy-casual, and not a place you rush through.

Picaritas bags split open and loaded with ceviche, mayonnaise, and hot sauce, then dusted with Tajín: that's a caldosa, and it's the thing to order at this compact ceviche spot in Escazú. The room runs entirely blue, walls to cold bar, and the menu leans into Costa Rican style, long-marinated in lime, sweet peppers, purple onion, and cilantro, with fish, shrimp, squid, and blood clam all in the mix.

The corn-flour empanadas here have been coming out of the fryer since before most regulars' grandparents were born, served alongside the Plaza de las Garantías Sociales. This is a casual Tico snack counter where you order by filling, beans to chicharrón, and the house move is getting your empanada split and dressed with lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and chilera. Morning coffee or afternoon horchata both work. Show up hungry and without a reservation.

Every shot of rum comes with a free snack, which is the kind of bar policy that deserves to be exported globally. La Vasconia is a dive bar and karaoke spot where ordering a bucket of beers unlocks a round of bocas, think ceviche, chorizo, or fried yuca. The local call is Centenario rum or a chiliguaro, Costa Rica's spicy guaro-and-tomato-juice answer to a Bloody Mary. Stay late and there's a full menu of Tico classics to keep you upright.

The rondon arrives in a deep bowl, coconut-milk broth holding fish or mixed seafood together with cassava, taro, yams, and plantains, and it's the reason most people drive out to Santa Ana. Ricky Barthley's casual, shady neighborhood restaurant doubles as a sports-watching spot, with an afro-Costa Rican and Caribbean seafood menu that also runs through chunky ceviche, shrimp fried rice with patacones, and a mariscada stew served over gallo pinto.

The smiling pig in a chef's hat on the logo sets the tone: this is a casual, family-friendly skewer spot built around wood-fired pinchos, the meat-on-a-stick tradition Ticos reach for when carnita cravings hit. Pork with chorizo, pork with vegetables, chicken, all charred over wood and served with barbecue, hot, or pineapple sauce. Massive steel hoods handle the smoke. A cheerful, unpretentious place to eat with your hands.

A takeout spot run by a chef who trained at Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain and came home to make raw food instead. The menu leans on Costa Rican produce, cold-pressed juices spiked with turmeric and ginger, plant-based sushi and poke bowls, and vivid dragon fruit bowls that look almost too colorful to be lunch. The chef also teaches raw-food preparation classes when she isn't behind the counter.

Strawberry picking comes before you even sit down, which tells you exactly what kind of place this is: a rustic roadside stop on the slopes of Poás where the menu reads like a Costa Rican grandmother's weekly rotation. Chorreadas, gallo pinto, olla de carne, and a tortilla aliñada the size of a Frisbee stuffed with masa, cheese, and cream. Wash it down with a cup of local coffee or fresh strawberry juice still cold from the garden.

The setting is an old remodeled house in Barrio Amón, which fits: this is the kind of neighborhood restaurant where the menu reads like a love letter to Costa Rican regional cooking. The chef leans on local ingredients and sustainable catch, working through dishes like caldosa and arroz guacho from Guanacaste in a way that feels rooted rather than nostalgic. A casual dinner spot with serious intentions behind it.

A soda is Costa Rica's answer to the diner, and this stall inside San José's Central Market is the old-school institution among them. The family now running it carries on the tradition of antojitos, gallo pinto combo plates, and casados piled with rice, beans, meat, and spaghetti, all finished with plenty of chilera. Go expecting to share a narrow counter with locals who have been ordering the same thing for years.

Perched on a forested mountainside west of San José, this wellness resort skips the beach entirely in favor of rainforest views and a program that runs from yoga and spa treatments to IV therapy and something called emotional healing. Rooms scale from doubles to a three-bedroom villa, the restaurant leans local and health-forward, and the bar quietly ignores the detox menu. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Terraced suites climb a jungle mountainside above Manuel Antonio, with the Pacific coast spread out below, which is a strong opening argument for booking the balcony room. This adults-only luxury resort keeps things calm by design, pairing polished stone, high ceilings, and crisp tropical interiors with a bi-level pool connected by a waterfall. A spa, guided tours into the national park, and La Luna restaurant round out the picture.

Twenty-one acres of Pacific coast rainforest, most of it left completely alone. Los Altos is a resort perched on a hillside just outside Manuel Antonio National Park, where the suites have floor-to-ceiling windows and wide balconies looking out over the canopy to the ocean. Rattan and palm frond details keep things tropical without tipping into tiki bar. The infinity pool and spa suit guests who plan to do absolutely nothing, and private beach access suits everyone else.

Mosaic-encrusted walls, Balinese carvings, and mid-century Hollywood glam collide across this adults-only boutique hotel perched on a rainforest bluff above the Pacific. Ten villas and suites line the hillside, each with an ocean-facing terrace and hammock, and a golf cart shuttles you down to a wild beach below. The Shanti Spa is lined with river pebbles laid in spiraling patterns, and the restaurant swings close to 360-degree views of jungle and sea.

A Greek-style amphitheater with columns sits on a Costa Rican clifftop a thousand feet above the Pacific, which tells you something about the vision here. Villa Caletas is a French-inflected hillside resort that skips the thatched-roof playbook entirely, mixing contemporary design with colonial antiques. Villas and suites run toward plunge pools and jacuzzi views; the basic rooms are comfortable without pretending otherwise. Pack walking shoes: the layout is all stairs, no elevator.

Six ocean-view suites on a hilltop above Dominical, running on solar and rainwater, with a 2024 Costa Rican longboard champion giving lessons and reviewing your footage after. Lamangata is a small, all-inclusive surf resort on Costa Rica's quieter southern Pacific coast, staffed by a private chef working from an on-site greenhouse. Nauyaca Falls is nearby for anyone who needs a day away from the board.

Thirty-one casitas spread across a hundred-odd acres of rainforest, each with its own plunge pool and an unobstructed view of Arenal Volcano straight through the trees. This is a luxury rainforest resort that sits where most hotels don't bother, right at the park's edge, well away from the coasts. Local materials, low-key in atmosphere but not in comfort, and enough guided expeditions, from volcano hikes to sloth-spotting, to justify staying a week.

Ten jungle villas arranged in small private clusters, each with a saltwater pool and 270-degree views of canopy and Caribbean through open-air ventilation, no AC required. This new luxury resort in Puerto Viejo was born after the Slovenian founder rented a local's house and never left; that same local now runs the property. Cacao ceremonies and BriBri community visits are on the activities list, and the team planted 900 species after building, apparently to apologize to the jungle.

Fifty casitas tucked into 180 acres of hillside tropical forest, each with terrace views that make it hard to argue for doing anything at all. This Auberge resort leans into the mountain setting with farm-to-table dining across four venues, a 20,000-square-foot spa drawing on local traditions, and an all-inclusive structure that removes every excuse not to simply stay another day.

Santa Teresa's La Lora surf break is practically in the front yard, but Hotel Fermata leans boutique rather than backpacker, with villas, casitas, and suites done in warm neutrals and organic materials that feel effortless without trying too hard. The open-air restaurant and bar is the social hub, where a New York and Paris-trained chef runs a Mediterranean-leaning menu. The Pacific breeze does its part; the place handles the rest.

A rooftop saltwater pool overlooking Tamarindo Bay sets the tone at this small eco-hotel on Costa Rica's northwest coast. Fourteen rooms lean luxurious without abandoning the plant-based, heal-yourself brief, and the in-house restaurant, Off the Grid, runs a seasonal, entirely vegan menu. A yoga and healing studio sits just off the pool deck. The crowd tends to arrive with a reusable water bottle and a genuine intention to use it.

Safari-style glamping on the lower slopes of an active volcano, which is either thrilling or deeply on-brand for Costa Rica, depending on your disposition. The tented roofs are the only thing between you and the jungle, but they do keep the rain out. Shared restaurants and a spa connect to two sister resorts nearby, though the real point is what's outside: ziplines, river trips, suspension bridges, and horses all waiting by morning.

Each villa comes with its own plunge pool, a hammock, and an ocean view, which covers most of what you flew to Costa Rica for. This boutique resort on the Nicoya Peninsula keeps things blissfully self-contained: canopied king beds, patterned textiles, tropical flora framing the terrace, a kitchenette, and in-room spa treatments if the hammock somehow isn't enough. The main pool has a waterfall. Nearby Mal País, still more fishing village than tourist trap, rewards an ATV.

The road up to this adults-only jungle villa resort above Uvita is rough enough to feel intentional, a natural filter before the silence kicks in. Some villas face the Pacific; others are basically swallowed by rainforest canopy, with walls of glass making the tradeoff easy. The spa leans into the wild surroundings rather than ignoring them, and the restaurant works with Costa Rican flavors without treating them as a problem to solve.

A fifty-foot thatched palm ceiling covers the restaurant, and a curving black sand beach sits a few hundred feet below the hillside rooms, each with a hammock aimed at the Pacific. This secluded Costa Rican eco-resort is four hours from San José by land (four-wheel drive required, nighttime arrival discouraged), though a short charter flight is the move if you'd rather arrive intact. Casitas have plunge pools; villas have full private pools and, presumably, the solitude you came for.

Las Catalinas is a car-free town on the Guanacaste coast, which means the Santarena Hotel is the rare Pacific resort you walk to from the beach rather than shuttle to from an airstrip. The architecture nods to colonial mansion style without going theme-park about it, and rooms come with balconies or gardens, some with sea views. A rooftop pool, a Mediterranean restaurant, a lobby bar, and a bakery make leaving optional, if not quite inevitable.

Hot springs fed directly by Arenal volcano run through the property, and the resort has leaned into that fact hard enough to build an entire thermal river system around it. Tabacón is a five-star eco-resort with 105 rooms, open-air spa bungalows, and a resident shaman who leads traditional sweat ceremonies in the rainforest. Rooms have private terraces and jacuzzis for the relaxation-averse who still want to relax. Two restaurants cover local and international ground.

Perched on a hillside above Playa Guiones with views that earned the name "Tierra Magnifica" fair and square, this 13-room boutique hotel sits just far enough from one of Costa Rica's most famous surf breaks to feel genuinely removed from it. Rooms lean minimalist but never austere, and everything opens toward the canopy and the Pacific breeze. The yoga pavilion and the restaurant terrace reinforce the idea that walls are optional here.