Lonely Planet Costa Rica

by Lonely Planet and Rob Rachowiecki

This guide offers travellers the full range of options available in Costa Rica - from secluded beaches to resorts, from camping to staying in luxury hotels. The first edition of this guide was the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0864422059
• ISBN13: 9780864422057
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Lonely Planet
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.2"

Customer Reviews

Great guide to Costa Rica

I just got back from a 10 day trip in Costa Rica. We used this book both before and during the trip, and it was fantastic. The information was unfailingly complete and accurate, the advice offered was excellent, and I don't think I'll ever take another trip out of the country without a Lonely Planet guide. At almost every stop, someone asked to borrow it, and many of the other travellers we met had their own copy.

best for low budget

Lonely Planet tends to cater towards the low budget student traveler and this book is no different. However, I am a budget student traveler and found this book extremely helpfull. My friends and I began refering to it as the "biblia" which means bible. It knows exactly what an adventurous young traveler will want to do. Great guide, wayyyy better than the frommers. Put the frommers down.

Great Guide; Excellent vacation

I ended up a few weeks and travelling through parts of Central America. This travel guide is one of the ones I took with me, and I highly recommend it. This guide proved to be invaluable, and saved me a lot of headaches and money. Traveling solo, I rarely make reservations or plans until I actually get there. This is what I did when I got to Costa Rica. Thanks to this LP guide I can report the following highlights: $7 per night hotel room in San Jose, watching a live volcano (Arenal), spending time in the hot springs at the base of a live volcano, visiting a coffee plantation, hiking through Cloud Forest, and seeing several breathtaking waterfalls. Travelling through Nicaragua to Tortugero to watch the endangered turtles lay eggs was definitely a worthwhile adventure.A few words of advice: If you are going to visit the rain forest, bring a poncho. It rains in the rain forest. A lot, especially during the rainy season. Perhaps that is why they call it a rain forest. Secondly, visit the local tourist offices in San Jose. I went in looking for some free maps, and got a lot of good advice. It never hurts to have some extra advice about where to go to supplement the guide.A little dense, it becomes hard to visualize places when planning a trip, but the real value is when you are the ground and moving. Highly recommended.

An excellent guide book

I've used a couple of guide books for my trips to Costa Rica. This one was the best, It had more in it than others, and provided better discriptions that most of the others. The reviews of the places were honest and the prices were usually about right. The edition I used was a 2000 edition, I think that this is the most up to date lonely planet guide for Costa Rica, but I could be wrong. The is no guide book that has everything but this is the best I've found. If your only going to buy one guide book or if you are thinking about a trip to Costa Rica and want some information, I would highly recommend this book. The section in the back with animal descriptions is also very nice. Get the book, and the go to Costa Rica, you'll love it.

essential

Lonely Planet is always on the money with their guide books, but the Costa Rica edition is even better than average. It has everything you could conceivably need to know, and if it doesn't have it, it tells you how to find out. The info. was up to date when I went there, but Costa Rica is such a friendly and easy going place, that it doesn't really matter which hotel or restaurant you eat at. Just ask a friendly local and they will be more than willing to help you out. The only drawback is that some of the maps are not detailed enough if you are planning to take some of the backroads, so get a roadmap in addition to this book. However, that is a small price to pay for such an indispensable little guide.But remember, it is just a guide, not an instruction manual. You will have a better trip if you discover some stuff out for yourself, rather than going to the first "attraction" that LP suggests and finding 100 other tourists walking around with the same guidebook in their hand!Oh yeah, and not to mention, it is impossible to destroy an LP guide. Later.