we’re thinking about a trip to costa rica in january. wanna come? perhaps hmc will be done with her job and not yet sucked up onto the james cameron debacle. we’ve got to plan now to stake our claim to recreation! preferably turtle and monkey watching recreation.
the big question is which guidebook should i use? i took ALL of them out from the library and now i have six. betwen lonely planet, rough guide, fodor’s, frommer’s, the new key to…, and an ecotraveller’s guide to…, how am i supposed to decide which one is the best? i suppose if i was al i’d read them all and then make a detailed matrix of each book and what features each has, along with a list of recommended common items, allowing me to compare the deficiencies.
but who’s got that kind of time? crikey. if there were only someone i knew who claimed to be a great travel writer, and who maybe would just put up recommendations online. maybe someone who was married to a dirty foreigner, so they’d have another perspective as well? hmmm.
i guess in the meantime, i can just read lots of books on costa rica. or at least watch videos of mannequins coasting:
The canal trip to Tortuguerro (and the sea turtle beach walk once you are there), Volcan Arenal (it’s active and if the cloud cover lifts you get to see live eruptions), Quepos was a great beach but after I talked to some people I wished I had made it to Península de Nicoya up at Tamarindo. I heard there is some seriously great boat-fishing there if you like that kind of thing. Of course you will want to go to a cloud forest. How long will you stay? My sweetest days there were actually chillin on the caribbean at Puerto Viejo which is a tiny town down by Nicaragua. Great snorkeling, The Best ceviche and beautiful beach….ah floating in highly salinated water!
I should come over this weekend with my and we can look through the guide books and work on my computer. Are you in town?
yeah, i went there for 3 weeks in january year before last. i’d be happy to make some recs. call me or lets get dinner or somethin’.
Posted by: jason at November 24, 2006 11:15 AMwe have turtles in australia! and monkeys can be arranged. and last time you were here doesn’t really count because you didn’t know any dirty foreigners. i think it’s time to give australia another chance.
but about the guidebooks … figure out which one is the most recent. figure out what kind of trip you want - budget, mid-range, bank-buster. and then see which guidebook caters best to your trip. oh, and make sure you don’t use a first edition anything.
my guess is that either the Lonely Bollocks or the Rough Guide will work best for you.
Posted by: bartlebee at November 24, 2006 1:59 PMmy wife beat me to it.
take personal advice, like cheryl’s. use the guidebook to get from A to B and to smack touts about the head.
all you ever really need in a guidebook is maps. the advice comes from someone who is likely nothing like you. and it’s old.
australia is very nice.
Posted by: xz at November 24, 2006 2:48 PMMy friend Anna is from Costa Rica, and I went there a year ago for her wedding. I second the recommendation to try to get to Peninsula de Nicoya… I didn’t go myself, but Anna raved about it. I’d also say go to Arenal for a volcano hike and the fantastic Tabacon hot springs. Manuel Antonio national park has beautiful pristine beaches. You may want to try the Sky Trek zip line canopy tour in Monteverde. And if you can make it to the Caribbean side, Puerto Viejo has some good eatin’.
One other recommendation: Don’t drive. The roads are ridiculous in some areas. Take the Interbus instead.
Check out the Moon handbook for some other good recommendations.
Posted by: Ken at November 27, 2006 8:17 AMComments are now closed for this entry. Thank you for playing.