If you’re a surfer, digital nomad, or simply like to travel to tropical destinations, you have probably heard about Costa Rica before.

It’s a slightly more expensive destination than other well-known destinations among the digital nomad crowd, hence why it gets a bit less attention. Excluding amongst north-americans, since with them the purchasing power is still enough to justify it as a destination with great nature, relatively accessible at the distance of a short flight and peaceful.

This country of central America offers varied options for tourism, from the mountains, to vulcanos, nature and wild life, thermal baths, beaches, pristine natural parks and adult entertainment. It’s an excellent option for any of those objectives but today we’re going to choose according to the surf beach life quality and night life.

The most common entrance to the country is without a doubt Juan Santamaria airport. Once we arrive in San José we’re faced with our first decision. Where to go and how?

You have a few options:

Stay in San José
Transfer ($$) or bus ($) to Jacó
Bus to Cobano through Puntarenas ferry and then to St. Teresa ($)
Transfer to St. Teresa through the ferry ($$)
Flight to Cobano and then bus to St. Teresa ($$$)

You can check some of the transfers and buses on La Terminal Costa Rica (if you don’t seem to find the one you want make sure you try different location names that are the same place)

Staying in San José is an option if you’re looking mostly for night life and adult entertainment or if you’re looking to go to the mountain side. If staying there I would expect you to have experience travelling and you’re used to big cities with all the nuances they involve, specially if you’re planning on going out for night life. If we ignore that, there’s no beach around, just mountains, so surf is something out of range.

The second option, in my opinion the best, is to go to Jacó, either by transfer, shared taxi, or even by bus. Jacó is a coastal town in the district of Puntarenas. It was the first city to be developed in terms of serious touristic potential and due to that is in general a great option because it has everything you might need for a stay or vacation, short or long. To make it all better it’s only 2 hours away from San José.

Jacó Beach / Praia de Jacó - Costa Rica — Jacó Beach

**27 July 2023**

It has a beach with consistent surf. Even though it isn’t amongst the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica it plays its role quite well. Besides that you can find Playa Hermosa close by, a few minutes by car from Jacó, which boasts 5km of dark volcanic sand, with a beautiful backdrop. You’ll find lodging and restaurants and the biggest concentration of surfers right at the beginning of the beach stretch but, as you go through those 5km less and less you’ll find, many parts simply empty, with plenty of beach breaks for surfing alongside.

Jacó has everything you might need, lodging, both proper hotels or apartments and studios, as well as supermarkets, stores, restaurants, massage parlours, pubs, nightlife and more. It really has everything you might need. Playa Hermosa is significantly less developed but it’s such a short ride that it would only matter if you’re planning on just walking everywhere, otherwise you can go to Jacó to re-stock and for everything else unavailable in Playa Hermosa.

This makes Jacó the ideal spot to start your trip in Costa Rica - unless your plan is to surf your brains out and just surf - in that case going to Pavones, almost by the Panamá border, might be the better bet. That option is at least a 7h trip in less developed roads and less infrastructure for tourism although, sometimes, that might be exactly what one is looking for anyway. This blog post nonetheless will focus about some spots that include both surf and other simple pleasures of life and in that context Jacó works as a better first stop.

After being in Jacó if you want to explore a bit more, there’s a few options. The first is to go south, reaching places like Manuel António, Uvita and Dominical, all places that are calmer, specially the further you go in the list, with less tourism, but all still great for surfing. They don’t have the same type of night life as Jacó but they have other things instead - less people going around, more peace, wild life, nature. Manuel António has the famous same namesake park - famous due in part to being the nearest park to Jacó, in part for it’s natural beauty and bay, in part because due to its size it can fit an half a day trek. Uvita is known for being an excellent spot to watch whales as they migrate close by as well. Dominical and all the other 2 also have consistent surf.

The second option is to move to Guanacaste peninsula, where the famous St. Teresa town is located, with its beautiful white sand beaches and half-hippie-zen-pura-vida vibes. The regular way of going to St. Teresa is to go to the city of Puntarenas and catch a ferry to the peninsula. It’s a cheap way of doing it if you happen to have a mode of transport or you go by public transportation. If you’re going to pay for the trip to the ferry and then to St. Teresa on the other side it ends up not being that cheap.

To add to that, it takes quite a bit of time so I originally had discarded going to St. Teresa and instead I went to Manuel António. I was planning on going further south but once I did the transfer I found out the company I used also had a speed boat connecting to St. Teresa. The price of that was $60 and something. Since they could also do the whole connection from Manuel António, to the speed boat point near Jacó (Playa Herradura) and it would take 4h with the crossing, and then transfer to anywhere in St. Teresa I decided instead to go there, leaving behind the idea of Uvita and Dominical. Which would have been perfectly fine too nonetheless.

Zuma Tours is the company I used. They have a bunch of routes around Puntarenas, Jacó, St. Teresa, Montezuma so check them out and see if something catches your eye and opens up some adventure you might not have considered due to the hassle it would be. I used them to go to Manuel António, then from there to Playa Herradura plus St. Teresa, then from St. Teresa back to Jacó and finally to take me to the airport in San José once I was going to leave the country. All without any problem, always someone available on whatsapp or through the website form. You can see the speed boat crossing on the video linked at the beginning of this post (it’s in Portuguese though).

In the coast of the Guanacaste peninsula there’s several interesting spots. St. Teresa is almost at the southmost tip but going north you’ll find Sámara, Nosara and Tamarindo - Nosara known for being a Yoga/Zen retreat area and Tamarindo as a tropical destination for expats, where even in the rainy season it’s mostly dry.

What is called St. Teresa is an extension of more or less 4km that encompasses also Carmen. There’s a paved road in the St. Teresa portion and then flattened dirt in the Carmen stretch (this was 2023, it will - or maybe already has - be paved as well). I stayed 5 days in each part.

Throughout that central “road”, in both sides, you’ll find several businesses for anything you might need - coffees, restaurants, co-working places, pubs, surf schools, hotels, apartments, vehicle rentals, mini-markets and even a mid-size super market.

Due to the layout of the town, on both sides of that “avenue”, there’s plenty of stays where you still get that feeling of being embedded in nature, that increases the further you go up from the road. There are (or were when I went) lodging for any budget during low season - the prices increase significantly during high season (from the end of November till April). When I went (end of August) you could find individual rooms and small studios/apartments for less than 1000$ per month - once again - not as cheap as other destinations considering the prices even in low season are higher than many of other digital nomad hotspots during their high seasons - but I enjoyed staying there.

St. Teresa Main Road

**13 August 2023**

Relatively to surf the ideal is to be with a group of people to go explore or hire a local instructor that can take you hunting around the area as there are plenty of spots that require a car, quad and knowing the area as well. While staying in St. Teresa I missed any relevant swell, but I was able to surf a bit. While staying on Carmen on the other hand I got a few nice swells during my 5 days stays and it was pretty nice. It’s not as strong as Playa Hermosa or Jacó, but with the right swell strong enough to create decent sized waves and for the breaks to come alive really nicely. It’s sand bottom so even when it got slightly bigger it was still pretty user friendly.

In terms of crowd, St. Teresa was always packed while Carmen, even though it had a crowd, I felt like there was always enough space to find your own peak and surf without worrying of cutting people. In St. Teresa the crowd is made up more of people passing by or staying for smaller seasons, while in Carmen it looked like the crowd was more local, both natives and expats that lived there full-time. In both beaches though I never had a problem with anyone, either inside or outside the water.

Lastly the night life. We have to admit, it’s way calmer than Jacó for sure. As I said the vibe is more zen-hippie-stuff. It has a lot of partying, bars and such, but the mood is less adult entertainment and more chill out youthful partying. I haven’t seen a single massage parlour there for instance.

After staying in this area for 10 days I decided to go back to Jacó and stay there, leaving open the possibility of surfing in Playa Hermosa in case the surf in Jacó beach wasn’t to my liking. This was due majorly because the surf here in St. Teresa was less fun than in that side of Costa Rica - when there were strong swells alright, but otherwise kind of soft whereas in Puntarenas coast even the smaller swells made for punchy beach-break stuff, specially in Playa Hermosa.

After trying out surfing in Jacó I was pleasantly surprised by the break quality and even though the beach is uglier, the water having a bit more polluted look, I found myself enjoying surfing there and I didn’t even go to Playa Hermosa anymore during my last 2 week stay.

If you’re interested in going from San José to St. Teresa there’s a few options, from transfers that go through the ferry in Puntarenas (from $65 to $150, ±5h), to flights from Juan Santamaria to Cobano (±$130, then take a local bus), but also public buses if you take them to Cobano and then connect to St. Teresa on another local bus, that is doable with less $20 but takes all in all those 5h and something.

In the next article I’ll talk a bit about the rainy season, since it’s the low season, budget wise the best time to go vacationing in Costa Rica - or if you want to surf, because the stormier season also creates stronger swells. If you plan it correctly it’s possible to visit during rainy season and catch almost no rainy days - you don’t even need to be lucky, it’s enough if you aren’t overly unlucky and you plan accordingly. To show you that I’ll also share some resources I found that make it easier to visualize and plan the trip during that time.

See you then!

Costa Rica - Jacó to Santa Teresa

Costa Rica during Rainy Season? 6 Reasons you should

Vlogging #1 - External Microphones