How to Spend 3 Days in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a gorgeous country with lots of lush greenery, tropical landscapes and wild animals. If you only have a long weekend, there are plenty of things you can see and do in 3 days in Costa Rica!

This country is full of natural attractions and no matter which area you choose or how many days you have to explore, you’ll be able to see some stunning landscape.

3 Days in Costa Rica

Would I suggest spending 3 days in Costa Rica? Not exactly, but I’ve done it before, so there’s that. I initially went here on a long weekend getaway to the Four Seasons at Guanacaste. While 3 days is definitely a short period of time, you can still do quite a lot.

I returned many years later and spent about 2 weeks there. The first week was spent working remotely in a town south of San Jose called Playa Hermosa. After that, we picked up a rental with a rooftop tent to roadtrip around Costa Rica.

The country is pretty large, so you’ll want to choose an area based on what you want to see. Here’s a few options for how to spend 3 days in Costa Rica:

Option 1: San Jose, Jaco, Manuel Antonio

San Jose is the capital city and one of the main airports to fly into (the other one is in the north in Liberia). Though most people will end up in San Jose for their flights, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend sticking around.

In my opinion, Costa Rica is more about the natural landscape and wildlife. That and there wasn’t too much to do in the city (some museums, markets and cathedrals). If you only have 3 days, you’ll want to maximize your time and there are better places to spend it.

So pick up a rental and start driving southwest to Jaco, one of the closest beach towns to San Jose. Jaco is a surf town nearby that’s a central area for a couple national parks.

Day 1: Carara National Park + Jaco

Just north of Jaco is Carara National Park, a popular place to spot birds like scarlet macaws, toucans and parrots. It’s a transitional rainforest with opportunities to spot lots of Costa Rican wildlife.

Jaco is a lively beach town with lots of restaurants and nightlife. It’s also next door to two other little beach towns: Playa Herradura and Playa Hermosa. We ended up staying in Playa Hermosa instead which is a quiet town and has a beautiful black sand beach.

Day 2: Manuel Antonio National Park

The most visited national park in Costa Rica is Manuel Antonio National Park. It’s located a little over an hour away down the coast from Jaco.

The park is on the coast with beaches and hiking trails to do. You’ll want to plan to spend at least a couple hours here, especially if you do any hiking. The beach here is really nice and a good place to end up after doing some of the trails. You can take a guided tour or explore on your own. We explored on our own and had no problem finding wildlife here.

Day 3: Nauyaca Waterfall Nature Park

Costa Rica has a number of stunning waterfalls and if you continue down the road from Manuel Antonio National Park, you’ll get to the Nauyaca Waterfall Nature Park. It’s a little under an hour from Quepos.

It’s a series of cascading waterfalls in the rainforest. It is one that requires a hike to get there and you’ll want to plan on 2-3 hours for the hike. You can do it in the morning or afternoon which leaves you with time to do an adventure tour if you want. You can find zip lining and ATV tours all over Costa Rica, so you can always opt for one of these in the afternoon!

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Option 2: La Fortuna + Monteverde

For this option, there will be a lot of variations that you can choose. The quickest route to La Fortuna from San Jose is about 2.5 hours. But there are some other routes that are about 3 hours long, that go by some fantastic attractions. So it’s really up to you what you want to prioritize.

La Fortuna and Monteverde also have plenty to see and do, so if you want to drive straight there, you absolutely can. Again, it’s just a personal preference to which things you want to see during your stay.

Day 1: La Fortuna

If you plan on driving straight to La Fortuna, hit the road early so you can take advantage of a full day in town. La Fortuna is known for its hot springs and proximity to the Arenal Volcano, which you can see from the town. There is a hot springs river that’s free to visit and a hike to the La Fortuna Waterfall.

There are plenty of hot springs options to visit, BUT I’d recommend going after some hiking. The Tabacon Hot Springs Resort, The Springs Resort and Ecotermales Hot Springs are all popular places to get a day pass.

Or Waterfalls and volcanoes

If you wanted to take the longer route to La Fortuna, there are several great stops along the way. Two of the closest to San Jose are the Poas Volcano and the La Paz Waterfall Gardens. The Poas Volcano greatly depends on the weather and even if you get a clear sky in the capital, there could be cloud coverage over the volcano. We only got a glimpse of what it looked like and it was really cold at the top.

The La Paz Waterfall Gardens I thought would be pretty touristy as they are a pretty common day trip from San Jose but actually it was a really nice place to walk around. There are five waterfalls here that you can see and the paths to each of them are well kept and through the rainforest. It felt like we were alone a lot of times as we hardly saw other people on the trail.

Another route up from San Jose is a little more off the beaten path, but has a series of waterfalls all along the road. The one I really wanted to go to was Catarata del Toro which is a waterfall in a volcanic crater, but it was closed on Sunday. Instead, we went down the road to Catarata Rio Agrio which ended up being one of my favorite stops that we did in Costa Rica.

The hike takes you right next to a dinosaur kids park (lol) but the hike has some stunning scenery that really made me feel like I was in Jurassic Park. The waterfall area was beautiful and it was another place that was very uncrowded.

Day 2: Arenal Volcano

If you explored La Fortuna the first day, you’ll want to head to Arenal Volcano National Park on day two. There are a lot of hiking trails and viewpoints within the park. This would also be a great place to do an ATV tour as a lot of them will take you through the rainforest and take you to some great viewpoints also.

If you did the longer route on the first day, you can explore the town, the La Fortuna waterfall (takes about 15 minutes to go down 500 stairs, but then you have to go back up 500 stairs) and the volcano on day two. Or hit the hot springs with a view of the volcano if you did some hiking the day before.

Day 3: Monteverde

On day 3, you can either stay in the area or head over to Monteverde to explore the cloud forests. You’ll want to wake up early and get on the road as it’s about a 3-hr drive from La Fortuna.

Monteverde is where you’ll find some of the suspension bridge trails overlooking the cloud forests. It’s definitely a beautiful area but it is a bit of a drive if you only have 3 days.

You can also forego Monteverde and take your time getting to La Fortuna and just staying around that area.

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Option 3: Guanacaste (Liberia + Tamarindo)

Guanacaste is a province in Costa Rica in the northwest of the country. A lot of people head here for the beaches, surfing and resorts. If you’re planning on exploring this area, you’ll want to fly into the other airport, which is in Liberia.

Day 1: Tenorio Volcano National Park

A popular place to visit up north is Tenorio Volcano National Park, mainly because of the powder blue waterfall known as Rio Celeste. It’s a little out of the way to visit but it’s a beautiful spot. It’ll take you about an hour and half to get to the national park and the hike to the waterfall is about 30 minutes on a mostly flat trail.

While you can’t go up to the volcano’s summit, there’s a trail that takes you around the park where you’ll be able to see blue lagoons, mud pots and scenic viewpoints.

Or Rincon de la Vieja National Park

You can also visit Rincon de la Vieja National Park for volcano hikes, hot springs and waterfalls. Rincon de la Vieja is the biggest and most active volcano in the Guanacaste area. While Rio Celeste is east, Rincon is about an hour and a half north (so both are equally out of the way). But there does seem to be more adventure tours near Rincon.

Day 2: Tamarindo

Tamarindo is a popular surf and beach town on the coast of Costa Rica about an hour and a half from Liberia. It’s a great beach for beginners to take surf lessons as there are waves all year round. You can explore the town, hit the beach and take a sunset catamaran cruise. There are beaches all along the coast, so if you wanted to explore the area, you can beach hop a little bit too.

The first time I was in Costa Rica, I stayed at the Four Seasons Peninsula Papagayo which is north of Tamarindo along the coast. It has its own beaches on the property so there isn’t really a reason to venture out to others.

But the second time in Costa Rica, I ventured all over the place and ended up in Tamarindo for a bit before heading even further south to Samara. The beach towns are really cute and a fun place to relax and get some beach time.

Day 3: Adventure Tours

Zip lining and ATV tours are super popular in Costa Rica and there are definitely options near Tamarindo to do both. The Diamante Eco Adventure Park has a dual zip line and animal sanctuary that you can walk through.

You can also book ATV tours or horseback riding tours through them also. I can’t remember if we had booked through the hotel (I think so), but I did all of the above at some point. The great thing about them too is getting to see viewpoints you wouldn’t otherwise see.

If you aren’t a fan of 4-wheelers, taking a horse through the countryside is a nice alternative. Again, it’s a great way to get out into the wilderness and see the beauty of the country.

Recommendations

If you’ve never been to Costa Rica before, I’d recommend heading to the La Fortuna/Monteverde area. That was one of my favorite areas and there are a ton of beautiful places to see. But you can see a little of everything in each place so it really just comes down to what you want to see the most or what you want to experience the most.

If, like me, you end up going back for a longer period of time, you can cover a lot more of the main attractions. Our 10-day itinerary took us all over the country and there are some really great attractions to see!

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