The Top 15 Hotels Near El Mangroove
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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.
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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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.