Costa Rica is one of those little-known countries, which I did not know how to locate on a map before booking our tickets. Located in Central America, it is very popular with Canadian and American families and to our surprise, we met several French families as well! To prepare our trips, I usually scribble our itinerary on a piece of paper:the places not to miss, the distances between the different stages, the hotels to book and the daily budget. I draw everything from existing road-trips, basing myself on Google Maps for the road, on Instagram for the photos of places that seem essential to me and I mix everything. The rest is done on site, by feeling, depending on the weather, the children and the unexpected.
For a few years, we have chosen to go to the sun for the February holidays. This sunny break does me a lot of good in the middle of winter. As it seems that you have to get out of your comfort zone, after Thailand and India, we thought we would go back to Asia next time. We had several friends who had already visited Costa Rica with young children and who had described to us a very green country, with extraordinary fauna, easy to explore.
If you get there early you can find non-stop flights with Air France for 800 euros per person return in high season. The flight lasts approximately 11 hours.
The other companies offer flights with a stopover, most often in the United States.
For practical and budgetary reasons, we left London for Miami (8 hour flight) then Miami to San José (2h30). This is the first time that we have made a flight with a stopover. The 5 hour stopover in Miami was certainly a bit long but allowed us to stretch our legs a bit. In the end, on a long flight, I find the stopover interesting.
We chose car rental. This allowed us more freedom on our circuit. I strongly advise you to rent a 4×4. The main roads are paved and in excellent condition, but the access roads in the mountains (Monteverde) or to certain hotels (Essence Arenal) are tracks that are sometimes several tens of kilometers long with fords and landslides. In short, the 4×4 is the vehicle of circumstance in Costa Rica to circulate serenely. You can rent car seats for children on site or take inflatable Bubble Bum seats with you. I recommend that you buy an internet access pack to travel with Google Maps rather than the GPS supplied with the vehicle. There is no real address in Costa Rica, very few direction signs, we were surprised several times and forced to turn around after missing a fork. Google Maps is very accurate, even lost in the middle of a track!
Going out in the sun considerably reduces the amount of clothes to carry. We generally leave with 2 backpacks of 60 and 50 litres, i.e. around twenty kilos of luggage maximum.
To wash the clothes, we do it as we go with our bar soap.
For the list of clothes to take, the ideal first aid kit and the essentials when you go on a trip with children, I invite you to read my more complete article on the subject:the checklist of the suitcase of children in travel.
In any restaurant you find "french fries", chicken or international dishes. But when we travel we seek above all to discover the country as a whole and the local gastronomy is part of it. In the morning we started the day with a Tico Breakfast. Rice mixed with black beans, eggs, plantain, all spiced up with a hint of cilantro and good coffee from Costa Rican plantations.
For other meals, our favorite dish is ceviche , the specialty of Costa Rica:raw fish marinated in coconut milk and garnished with avocado, fresh fruit and vegetables, not to mention coriander and lemon. There are also tuna tartars, Redsnapper or Roosterfish fillets. Let me tell you, we had a blast!
Discover the stages of our trip to Costa Rica starting with the Poas and Arenal volcanoes.
You can find the stages of our road-trip in Costa Rica with the family on the blog and do not hesitate to save the map of our trip to inspire you!
