14-Day Costa Rica Itinerary for Digital Nomads, Vegans, & Slow Travel

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14 Days in Costa Rica

nomads plant-based slow travel non-luxe

We visited Costa Rica for 2 weeks during a 2-month trip visiting Costa Rica, Bolivia, and Chile in early 2024.

We are Ella & Ryan, digital nomads, exploring the world mindfully. Between getting married, becoming nomads, and starting our own businesses, we’re sharing everything we learn along the way.

1st night in San Jose

We arrived into San Jose late in the evening and had to arrange to pickup our rental car. Anticipating that we wouldn't want to drive in the dark first thing after arriving, we opted to spend the night in San Jose at a urban B&B on the outskirts of the city.

We stayed in the less luxurious cabin (less expensive too!) of the B&B which was great for simply sleeping. The rest of our time was spent by the beautiful communal pool and at the hotel's small restuarant.

2 nights in El Tigre

🌱 Food: We were quite far from any restuarants and supermarkets during our stay in El Tigre. We stopped about an hour before arriving at our Airbnb to grab some essentials and cooked our own meals for our 2 day stay. Lots of rice and beans.

📍 Children's Eternal Rainforest: Our Airbnb host recommended driving to the Children's Eternal Rainforest for a forest hike. We were told it was 10 minutes up the road, but 1 hour later we were just arriving. It was a beautiful forest and we caught a glimpse of a waterfall at the end. Would we recommend this? Maybe not from the Pocosol Biological Entrance. Maybe the other side of the large protected park is more exceptional.

Our Airbnb was a few hours drive from San Jose. It was a quaint converted shipping container and a perfect size for the 2 of us. We had a balcony off the bedroom hanging over a steep gully and a beautiful vista to look out to from the front porch.

It was a peaceful stay here with not much to do around the property. There was another shipping container rental property being built in front of our which took away from the serenity of our stay but expansion seems to be common amongst Costa Rican Airbnb hosts.

Digital nomads travelling the world. Itinerary of Costa Rica based on couple travel, slow travel, working remotely, vegan travel, and budget travel. Picture of the forest, waterfall, and trees.

📍 Children's Eternal Rainforest

Digital nomads travelling in Costa Rica working remotely. Slow travel vegan travel and budget travel. Reading kindle in El Tigre overlooking forest.

3 nights in Monteverde

🌱 Food: Monteverde stood out for Costa Rica's vegan food options. It was the only stop where we didn't struggle to find options. We had delicious vegan sushi at The Open Kitchen in Monteverde and had filling plant-based burgers at the Monteverde Brewery.

We stayed in an rental that felt like it was part of a commune with massive walls guarding us (or keeping us in). We spent a few hours trying to check-in between driving back into town a few times to get cell reception and the power going out rendering the powered security gate useless.

We spent the few days balancing work, a coffee & coca tour, ziplining, and eating and drinking.

The Cloud Forest is the main attraction in Monteverde and we missed it! By the time we arrived, the entrance tickets were already sold out for the 3 days we were there. Make sure you book your tickets well in advance to avoid the disappointment we felt.

📍 Ziplining: Highly recommend checking out 100% Aventura ziplining tours while you're in Monteverde. They had the longest Zipline in North America at the time we went (1 mile long!). Such a surreal experience flying over the trees and getting the perspective of a bird.

The worst 3 nights in Drake Bay

🧳 Travel tip: Do thorough research on your accommodation beforehand. We relied too much on our host and the Airbnb platform, trusting that their property matched the listing description. Especially for longer stays, don't leave anything to chance and reach out to your host for clarification before the refund window closes.

We drove 8 hours from Monteverde in the North to Drake Bay in the South, a remote region on the Osa Peninsula. We were very much looking forward to some quaint relaxation close to the Pacific Ocean.

Turned out to be the worst Airbnb of our 2-month trip...

Stay tuned for a specific post on everything we learned from this experience.

Digital nomads in Drake Bay Costa Rica reading in hammock working remotely in jungle forest

📸 Relaxing

Digital nomads watching sunset in Drake's Bay Costa Rica overlooking Pacific Coast from Osa Peninsula

📸 Drake Bay sunset

Digital nomads eating vegan plant-based consato in Drake Bay Costa Rica

🌱 Traditional Consato (vegan)

5 nights in Jaco

As a result of our misfortune in Drake Bay, we cancelled our last stop in the Costa Rican interior and opted for the less ricky Jaco.

We figured the touristy town of Jaco would be the safer option to reconcile our disappointment with our previous stays. The town itself was bustling, our Airbnb was nice and modern, and we had lots to do. We went surfing (taught by a fellow Canadian 🇨🇦), observed breathtaking sunsets, continued to work remotely, and took in the energy of the vibrant surf town.

Did Jaco save perception of Costa Rica? Probably not.

Where we stayed in Costa Rica.

We opted for Airbnb's in most of our Costa Rica stops. For our price range we were consistently underwhelmed by where we stayed but nonetheless, most of them were sufficient.

However, we did have a nightmare Airbnb experience in Drake Bay where many of the listing details were wildly inaccurate. We'll put together some general lessons learned for this soon!

Learn more

Travelling to and from Costa Rica

💰 Budget tip: Exploit travel rewards programs. Doesn't matter what program it is, just pick one, stick with it, and see the world. We booked our flight to Costa Rica and returning from Chile for CAD $350 total for 2 people with Air Miles.

Arriving in San Jose, Costa Rica:

🛬 Coming from Toronto, we flew into San Jose with a short connection in Panama, flying with Copa Airlines.

Getting around in Costa Rica: 🚘 We rented a car (expensive!!) and drove between all of our stops (El Tigre, Monteverde, Drake Bay, Jaco, and returning in San Jose.

Departing from San Jose, Costa Rica:

🛫 Our next stop was La Paz, Bolivia. We flew with Avianca, connecting in Bogota, Colombia.

💰 Budget tip: If you can, avoid renting a car in Costa Rica. Most insurance schemes abroad do not qualify in Costa Rica, requiring visitors to purchase approved insurance plans directly. For reference, our car rental was $1500+ CAD for 2 weeks.