Costa Rica tips for the birder/hiker (Arenal, Bijagua de Upala)

January 18, 2024 1:04 PM

I am all set for a trip to Costa Rica next month. I will be staying for a few days near Arenal Volcano and a few days in Bijagua de Upala (flying through Liberia). I have rented a 4WD car. I'm mostly interested in a relaxed pace and doing lots of quiet hiking and bird watching. I'm also interested in booking some tours or activities in both locations. There's many different tours in both places and I'm a little overwhelmed with trying to pick!

Most of the tours (looking at reviews on TripAdvisor) tend to be more kid/family friendly but I'm interested in options that are adult-oriented with a focus on learning about local ecology, geology, biology, and other nerdy stuff.

I'm also interested in activities like kayaking, night hikes, canopy tours/platforms, wildlife refuges, guided walks, bird-watching or other wildlife day tours that employ good conservation practices.

I found these two previous AskMe questions helpful but would love any additional recommendations for these two parts of CR.

posted by forkisbetter to Travel & Transportation around Costa Rica (4 answers total)

You didn't link to this thread, so you probably didn't see it. I recommend Gecko Trails, like I did there.
posted by toucan at 2:06 PM on January 18

Also get yourself a birb book. I have this one but in Spanish.
posted by falsedmitri at 3:43 PM on January 18

Best answer: For an extremely low-key birding experience, you can chill out on the deck at Papa's Place and have all kinds of cool birds come to you (including, when I was there, a great curassow which I'm still not over). https://www.papas-place.com/

I also had a great experience hiring a tour for my family with https://www.birdingwithjuandiego.com/

In addition to a bird book, you can install the Merlin app on your phone and pre-load the costa rica bird pack. Great for ID'ing if you don't otherwise know where to start.
posted by eraserbones at 7:41 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]

Best answer: We hired Greenway Tours for our trip last year; they arranged transport, hotels, and tours.

Highlights for us: kayaking in Lake Arenal, a tour in Mistico Park, and Mr. Meat took a guided night walk.

We are not bird people, but we thoroughly enjoyed watching all the cool birds!
posted by Ms Vegetable at 10:32 AM on January 19