Customer Reviews

Costa Rica (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

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We used this guide in our recent trip to Costa Rica. In this review I will tell you the benefits of the formatting style of this guide; the strengths of the guide, and then a few weaknesses where more information would have been helpful. I will end the review by relaying my assessment of the finest resource in Costa Rica and recommendations regarding use of the guide for travel in Costa Rica.

The guide is formatted very well, as are all the Eyewitness Travel Guides. They give you basic cultural, historic and political background. They then give detailed section by section analysis of geographic areas where they identify the major points of interest and then show you a small photograph related to the item with a short basic informative description. The guide also gives more detailed two page essays with drawings and photos for major points of interest. The guide ends with traveler information on hotels, restaurants, transportation and safety.

Now I would like to tell you about the strengths of the guide in describing Costa Rica. We were interested in spending time on the Pacific beaches and visiting the lowland rainforrests. However we also wanted to spend time seeing the volcanoes in the center of the country and visiting the high mountain cloud forests.

We drove from San Jose to Manuel Antonio National Park and resort area. We stayed 3 nights in a beach hotel which was very basic but within a 5 minute walk of the beautiful Manuel Antonio beaches. These beaches have a mixed very fine sand of white silica and black volcanic pumice that is perfect for walking, relaxing, and playing. The Manuel Antonio Park is a must see attraction if you are visiting the Pacific coast. Giant varied bromeliads weight down vines and trees. Giant trees rise above the jungle to the light, buttressed by high bladed roots.The beaches within the park are excellent and the hikes to Punta Cathedral and other lookouts are worth the climb. Only 600 people are allowed to visit every day so go early. Wear or carry your bathing suit. To get to the park entrance you may have to wade through a creek in dry season. We saw spider monkeys and a family of Capuchin monkeys. The Capuchins are amazing with their pink faces trimmed with white fur and their agile black bodies and tails. We saw iguanas of every size as well as two sloths hanging from vines. We were warned not to drink local water but we drank it for 8 days while in Costa Rica without problems. To get to the park you have drive for 3.5 hours from San Jose through the mountains on twisting roads. You then drive on a long road that parallels the beach through the towns of Jaco, Puntarenas, and Quepos. The evenings cooled down to around 69 degrees, which were perfect for sleeping under a ceiling fan. The beach and park warmed up to 86 at mid-day. Driving along the beach roads you see African oil palms growing in fields that once held bananas before the Sigatoka fungus wiped them all out. One day we explored Playa Seca. We found 10 miles of undeveloped totally beautiful beaches surrounded by jungle and a few beach homes.

We then spent 3 days in a bed & breakfast in Heredia, a town north of San Jose founded in 1706 with a charming central square, cathedral and central market. From here we went on two long day trips. On the first trip we wanted to see the Poas and Barva volcanoes and the La Paz waterfall. Because of the twisty roads, expect to take far longer to visit a site that you may initially estimate. We arrived at Poas at 10:30 am and the clouds had already gathered so much that we had to wait between clouds to see the crater and its lake. We hiked to a hearby crater lake but by then the clouds were so heavy we couldn't see anything. However the hike was great with big navy blue-green hummingbirds swooping in and out of the cloud forest flowers. The La Paz waterfall was next on the list and it is very impressive. You can park your car and walk under. Then we tried to get to the top of the Barva Volcanoe. Along the way you will pass charming mountain villages and cool highland coffee plantations. Whereas on the beach you see Brahmin cattle bred to live in bright sunlight, in the mountain villages around the volcanoes you see dairy cows that provide the dairy products for the country. We finally reached the end of the road on the way to the Barva Volcanoe but found that we had to leave our car and hike 6 kms. or else try to drive over incredibly rocky dangerous roads. Our car would have been vulnerable if we left it to hike to the top whereas if we took the car, we could have easily broken an axle. Then next day we decided to try the Irazu Volcanoe and the Guayabo archeological site. Irazu was beautiful even if it took 3.5 hours to find the top. You are above the cloud line so the craters and the lake inside the principal crater were very dramatic. It took us hours to find the entrance to the Guayabo site only to discover that the road ran out and we would have to take our car over 10 kms. of the most pot hole infested dirt road I have ever seen. Again we couldn't abandon our car for several hours to walk 10 kms. into the site and 10 kms. out and yet we feared breaking an axle on the road. We then had to return to Heredia after 7.5 hours on the road to see one volcano.

So what were the weaknesses in the guide? First, because there are so few road signs in Costa Rica, a more detailed map with a few more minor roads and small village benchmarkes would have been helpful. Second, it would have been nice to be warned about the difficulty in reaching both Barva and Guayabo. Third, we tried to visit the Rainmaker Private Conservatory forest but found that there were only two tours a day with the bilingual tour at 1:00 pm for a cost of $65 per person. You could not explore except as part of the tour. I wish we had been prepared by the guide for the tour schedule and the cost. We heard that Rainmaker uses high suspension bridges rather than zip lines for tree top exploration and thus we were disappointed. Fourth, and this is the most irritating issue, is the issue of rental car insurance. We selected the lowest rate weekly car rental which was around $150 from a Coasta Rican company. We found out at 11 pm as we were picking up our car that whereas our credit card covered collision insurance, the cost of Costa Rican liability was $250 for the week, pushing the cost to $400. When shopping for the best rental car rate, make sure you explore whether Costa Rican liability insurance is included in the price quote or extra. Also, the car we rented had very little tread on the back wheels and we had a flat tire. The rental company told us it was our responsibility to pay for the tire repair which turned out to be on $3 at a filling station.

Let me end by saying that the Costa Rican people are beautiful and warm hearted. The country is full of incredibly stunning young women and model-handsome young men. The children are so beautiful they are angelic. Because we got lost 100 times, we frequently had to ask people walking along country roads for directions. I was continually amazed by the hospitality and warmth of the beautiful people of Costa Rica. This guide was very useful for exploring this fantastic country.

This Eyewitness Guide is devoted to Costa Rica and is a pretty typical entry in the series. It opens with a discussion of the history and culture of the country as well as an overview of some of its more prominent characteristics such as beaches, weather, and wildlife. Next, there are a number of sections detailing geographic regions such as San Jose, Central Highlands, Central Pacific, Guanacaste & Northern Nicoya, the Northern Zone, the Caribbean, and the Southern Zone. Each area gets 13 pages or so of descriptions and photographs. Listings for hotels, restaurants, shopping, entertainment, and outdoor activities are presented in the back of the book rather than with the geographic region they pertain to. Finally, there is a section discussing practical information of various kinds for travelers.

The great thing about this Eyewitness Guide to Costa Rica is that it offers over 650 photographs to help bring a gorgeous country to life. Rather than picking which places you most want to visit based on imagining them from descriptions, you can see them for yourself here. The problem with this guide is that its 288 pages are dominated by those photographs rather than detailed descriptions of hotels, restaurants, activities, etc. It simply isn't possible to put comprehensive detail into a few hundred pages when you already have more than 2 photos on average for each and every page.

I would recommend buying this guide, but I would also recommend purchasing the Frommer's Costa Rica 2008 (Frommer's Complete) to help plan the details of your trip. This is a great starting point, but you'll definitely want a resource with more information before you're done.

I used this guide in conjunction with the Lonely Planet guide. The Eyewitness Guide shows the reader a great deal more. While Lonely Planet provides a lot more detail, but this one doesn't leave it to your imagination since they have lots and lots of pictures. Also, this one is smaller and easier to carry.

I am a college student studying abroad in Costa Rica for the semester. So far, I've been pretty disappointed with the Eyewitness travel guide. Other students and I travel to different parts of CR about every other weekend, but this guide is painfully lacking in writing on the logistics of traveling. (I.e. bus services to use, hostel recommendations, hostel contact information, etc.) The small traveler's needs section that is present is very general and the few hotels that are offered are geared toward a traveler with money to spare. I also found that, despite having many beautiful pictures, there aren't many details about places of interest or special events in CR.

If you're a college student, or a traveler on a budget who needs information about places to stay, I would go for Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide to Costa Rica (A few of my friends here have lonely planet and that's the guidebook we use most to plan our trips; I rented the Rough guide from the library before my trip and thought it was pretty helpful.)

Back 2000 to 2005 I used the DK guides for London, Great Britain, Paris, Loire Valley, and probably some others along the way. They were GREAT, the best travel guides around. I just got the Costa Rica book and it falls far short of the depth of writing and local knowledge that the other volumes had. I've been to CR 3 times before as an independent traveler and wanted an updated book, so I went right to DK. Way too generic this time. Feels like they are coasting on past glory.

Two tips for others buying travel guides - read a few sample sections in a book, then read the same sample sections in a couple of other books. It will help decide which writer's style you prefer, who gives the depth or type of info you're interested in, etc. ( I should have followed this advice!) The other tip is two buy 2 guides for a destination that are very different from each other - it can really enrich your decision making.

I love DK Eyewitness books as a starting point when I've chosen a country I want to visit! They are very thoroughly illustrated and give nice overviews of every area of interest as well as information of the history of the country and culture.
The Costa Rica book is wonderful in this way. There are reviews stating it lacks some things, and I will agree but then again I never use only one book or guide when traveling. Maps and books like Lonely Planet puts out are best for other info regarding actual reviews of places to stay and where to visit and where to avoid and more detailed maps of areas.
That said, I personally am never disappointed in DK books and this one once again is wonderful!

Purchased several different guides & found this one to be more complete. Many visuals as well as coverage of most all areas of the country.

Very helpful, i was able to book our upcoming vacation witht he information i found. Love the photos.

By far the best Costa Rica travel guide and one of the best of the whole DK Eyewitness Travel Guides series.(I consulted all other guides whilst travelling in Costa Rica for a month)The main contributor,Christopher Baker,is an excellent writer,and manages to capture the Soul of Costa Rica--a unique country with 7 distinct ecosystems.The specially inserted chapters,with well-chosen photos for clarification, on the wild-life, flora and landscapes of the country,are in themselves a jewel worth the whole book.The maps at the beginning of each area/chapter, in which the main attractions are clearly picked-out and numbered ( a unique and unmatched feature of all DK Guides)help the traveller to choose easily what he prefers to see.Actually,the writer himself has already done the choosing for you,by omitting the huge amount of information about uninteresting places other guides overload their readers with.If you are planning to travel to Costa Rica...or if you are a...couch-traveller,buy it,without a second thought!

This was a good guide book to have on our recent trip to Costa Rica. We were part of an organized tour group so we didn't need a book to tell us where were the best places to go, although this book accurately provides you with that you. It isn't the best guide to tell you exactly where to eat or stay, so you might want to purchase another guide for those details. They do provide a section on restaurants and hotels but it is not as comprehensive as other guides I considered.
We used it to gain further information about the areas we were visiting. The pictures are beautiful. The information is useful, accurate, nicely arranged and easy to navigate. It not only guides you through the different regions of this beautiful country, but it gives you some history, cultural information, and practical information about visiting the country.
We were very glad to have it with us.