Icons of Costa Rica Eco Tour for Seniors

After landing at the country’s main international airport, you will spend the afternoon with a local guide, exploring central San Jose and the many characters that give it life. You can take a short stroll with your guide and spend some time relaxing around the city’s main plaza. As part of the afternoon, you will be introduced to two of San Jose's storytellers. As you sit back, the storytellers will tell you about Costa Rica’s history from pre-Columbian times to colonial takeovers and the progress that has been made since gaining their independence. This will provide you with some context for the rest of your tour, and you will not need to move very far.

After a short flight to Tortuguero, you will bask in the beauty of the Caribbean. You will be spending three nights at a lodge on the coast, where simple luxury blends naturally into the surroundings. Caribbean waters will provide turquoise hues when you look out from your suite. If you indulge in an inland stroll, birds and giant trees will provide an amazing impression. Your afternoon will be entirely customizable. The classic introductory activity is to take a slow-boat tour through the canals. By cruising through the rainforest, you can hear howler monkeys call from the trees and green herons as they fly past. Often, you can spot belted kingfishers that are perched above the water.

With two full days in Tortuguero, you can explore the park at a laid-back pace in addition to getting involved with local conservation efforts. Boat tours are magical, especially at sunrise and sunset, which is when the monkeys are out to play, and sloths hang lazily from branches. Your guides can also lead you on short walks, which is an excellent chance to spot some of the many iguanas and colorful reptiles that move bashfully around the trails. On either day three or four, you will visit a local sea turtle conservation project. Local guides will explain the work that takes place on different beaches, particularly in protecting the sand for sea turtle nesting and hatching. Exactly what you can do will depend on the time of year, but you should be able to enjoy encounters with turtles.

After leaving the lodge after breakfast, you will navigate Tortuguero’s canals one final time. At the farm, locals have been cultivating coffee since before organic certifications were created. With a single glance and smell, your guide can show you how to tell a good bean from a not so good or ruined bean. After inspecting the bushes and beans, your guide will instruct you in coffee cupping, which is a process that discerns the quality of coffee from bean to cup. After lunch at the farm, you will continue by road to La Fortuna. It will be a relatively long day of travel, so your lodge’s private hot springs will provide you with a welcoming place to soothe your muscles. Your lodge has eight private pools, and all of them have differing temperatures, so you can rest up after the drive before Arenal Volcano turns to a silhouetted form.

Today will be completely flexible, and there are many eco-tourism activities that you can try in the surrounding Arenal area. Some of the more famous include white-water rafting, rappelling down waterfalls, and hikes on volcanic slopes. You can try these if you wish, and your guide can tailor a walk or hike to your fitness levels because there are some great trails around the area. Another option for today will be a small boat tour of Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge. While the setting is not as exotic or magical as Tortuguero, incredible biodiversity is packed into a relatively small area, so you can witness some of the animals that you missed earlier on your Costa Rican eco-tour. For the evening, you will visit a local home and spend some time with a Costa Rican family, participating in making Casado, which is a typical dish of plantains and black beans.

After a relaxed breakfast and morning, you will ascend into the misty mountain air of Monteverde, which is Costa Rica’s most iconic cloud forest area. There is a point on the road where you can sometimes see all the way to the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, but usually, the clouds take over, and, sometimes, you cannot see further than 20 meters. Your lodge will be perched within a forest reserve, and from here, you can cruise into a nearby town for a choice of restaurants and bars. This afternoon, you will be led on a short, guided walk through a rehabilitated piece of forest. Your guide will show you different trees and how data is being collected and analyzed. By planting a tree, you can play your role in the rehabilitation process and gain access to some of the data from the canopy.

Although the bridges wobble a little, they are very safe and provide a unique insight into a world of capuchin monkeys, sloths, felines, and more than 500 bird species. Your guide will recommend that you explore these suspension bridges early in the morning, which is when the birds are more active, and there are fewer people. During the afternoons, you can continue your cloud forest immersion by exploring Monteverde’s lesser-known trails. By walking with local conservationists, you will discover the forest’s northern and western sections. Monteverde is Costa Rica’s premier birdwatching destination, and it really helps to have time and patience because the most unique attractions are easily missed if you spend all day walking on the trails.

From Monteverde, it is a beautiful drive along the Pacific to Manuel Antonio National Park. Descending from the cloud forest, you will wind toward the ocean, where crashing surf roars beneath and brings a new Pacific view. Perched on the edge of a tropical forest that overlooks the beach, your lodge will have an enviable location. Manuel Antonio is Costa Rica’s smallest and most famous national park. Here, you can get really close to different iguanas, which are reptiles that will look at you curiously before scampering into the undergrowth. After your drive, the afternoon will be really relaxed, so you can settle into your lodge, indulge in a stroll on the beach, listen for birds and monkeys, and feel the Pacific tranquility.

In Manuel Antonio National Park, you will first need to stop and listen. From the treetops will come a sonorous sound: howler monkeys that are sending a message to their rivals. Capuchin monkeys will chirp with a little more treble, which is a mischievous sound that fits their demeanor. During these two days, the activities will be privately customized to your interests. There are some wonderful walks that you can indulge in, and you can spend a full morning or afternoon deep inside the tropical forest. It is also possible to follow the dolphins on a catamaran cruise or to travel by motorboat to more of the park’s beaches.

After a relaxed morning, you will fly back to San Jose on a scheduled flight before transferring to your international flight home.