The Best Hotels Near Puna, by the Record
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.