Costa Rica

Just 4.3mi (7km) from the entrance to Manuel Antonio, the small, busy town of Quepos serves as the gateway to the national park, as well as a convenient port of call for travelers in need of goods and services. Although the Manuel Antonio area was rapidly and irreversibly transformed following the ecotourism boom, Quepos has largely retained its charm.

Nosara is a cocktail of international surf culture, stunning back-road topography, moneyed expat mayhem and yoga bliss.

It is on the nontouristy, coffee-cultivated hillsides of the Central Valley that you'll find Costa Rica’s heart and soul. This is not only the geographical center of the country but also its cultural and spiritual core. It is here that the Spanish colonizers first arrived, here that coffee built a prosperous nation, and here that picturesque highland villages still gather for centuries-old fiestas. It is also here that you’ll get to fully appreciate Costa Rica’s country cooking: artisanal cheeses, steamy corn cakes and freshly caught river trout.

This national park takes up 40% of the Península de Osa and is the last great original tract of tropical rainforest in Pacific Central America. The bastion of biological diversity is home to half of Costa Rica’s species, including the largest population of scarlet macaws, and countless other endangered species, including Baird’s tapir, the giant anteater and the world’s largest bird of prey, the harpy eagle.

Stretching from Puntarenas to the tiny town of Uvita, the central Pacific coast is home to wet and dry tropical forests, sun-drenched beaches and a healthy dose of wildlife. On shore, national parks protect endangered squirrel monkeys and scarlet macaws, while offshore waters nurture migrating whales and pods of dolphins.

Strung between two lovingly preserved cloud forests, this slim corridor of civilization consists of the Tico village of Santa Elena and the Quaker settlement of Monteverde, each with an eponymous cloud forest reserve. The cloud forests are premier destinations for everyone from budget backpackers to well-heeled retirees.

The southern coast is the heart and soul of Costa Rica’s Afro-Caribbean community. Jamaican workers arrived in the middle of the 19th century, and stayed to build the railroad and work for the United Fruit corporation. Also in this area, to the interior, are some of the country’s most prominent indigenous groups – cultures that have managed to remain intact despite several centuries’ worth of incursions, first from the Spanish, later from the fruit industry and currently from the globalizing effects of tourism. They principally inhabit the Cocles/Kèköldi, Talamanca Cabécar and Bribrí indigenous territories.

Om Costa Rica är ett himmelrike för djurälskare är Manuel Antonio Edens lustgård, skriver Vagabonds webbredaktör. Här berättar hon om en av hennes absoluta favoritplatser i världen.

Vilda och exotiska djur är av intresse för många resenärer. Det är ibland vad som lockar turister till ett speciellt land. Costa Rica är en sådan destination men nu har landets myndigheter satt ner foten – turister ombeds sluta ta selfies med landets djur.

For most of its history, La Fortuna has been a quiet agricultural town, about 4 miles (6km) from the base of Cerro Arenal (Arenal Hill). In 1968, Arenal erupted violently after nearly 400 years of dormancy and buried the small villages of Pueblo Nuevo, San Luís and Tabacón. Suddenly, tourists from around the world started descending en masse in search of fiery night skies and that inevitable blurry photo of creeping lava. La Fortuna remains one of the top destinations for travelers in Costa Rica, even though the great mountain stopped spewing its molten discharge in 2010.