Lonely Planet Costa Rica [Paperback]

Rob Rachowiecki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997 | Series: Lonely Planet Costa Rica

As well as tropical rainforests and beautiful beaches, Costa Rica features active volcanoes and windswept mountain-tops. Though a relatively small country, it boasts a variety of wildlife, especially exotic birds and rare animals such as jaguars and tapirs. This guide offers travellers the full range of options available in Costa Rica - from secluded beaches to resorts, from camping to staying in luxury hotels. The first edition of this guide was the 1992 Gold Medal Winner of the SATW Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Many Costa Rica guides provide hotel, restaurant, and arrival information, but Lonely Planet's stands out from the pack. Written by Rob Rachowiecki, an award-winning travel writer and naturalist, this guide delves into Costa Rica's flora, fauna, and nature reserves like no other. Rachowiecki's Costa Rica includes a 36-page color wildlife guide, contacts, and details on outdoor activities from kayaking to scuba diving, and bird watching to surfing. There are 54 maps of cities, towns, regions, and parks, plus a comprehensive e-mail and Web site directory, and scads of eating and accommodations options, from budget to upscale. With its rainforests, wildlife, volcanoes, and beaches, Costa Rica is among the most beautiful destinations, and Rachowiecki's guide prepares you to explore and enjoy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 568 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 3rd edition (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0864423667
• ISBN-13: 978-0864423665
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,901,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

195 of 199 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Necessary to know what to avoid, March 8, 2004

By 

Traveling the world (Heading East...) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Costa Rica (Paperback)

Just got back from Costa Rica (2 wks), and had a good time, though it wasn't without serious disappointment.

While there we noticed that almost all the guidebooks people were carrying around were Lonely Planet (LP). But everywhere we stayed that LP raved about was very disappointing, and the few places we stayed that were very understated in LP were excellent.

My theory is that so many people are using LP that if a place gets a rave recommendation the business just pours in. They jack up their prices, sit back and rest on their reputation, and the facility and service deteriorate. But the money keeps pouring in because of that great LP review. Meanwhile the underrated places have to work their butts off to get business. Even though LP CR is only 2 years old, the prices of the highly rated hotels were off by as much as 50%, whereas the ones with understated descriptions were right on.

Generally, I like using LP, but for CR I would say that too many people do. Grab a different guidebook and cross-ref it with LP. If it has a nice sounding place that's not in LP, stay there!

We also used Frommer's even though it doesn't have much of a selection of budget places. Frommer's descriptions are so much more colorful and accurate. You get the impression that they only write about places for which they have first-hand knowledge. Plus Frommer's 2004 edition is new and the prices were exactly right. But, it's not sufficient by itself because it just doesn't list enough places.

Our rule of thumb for LP CR: If LP writes more than half a column about a hotel or lodge, avoid it! It will be overrated by now, with ridiculously high prices, and an inattentive staff.

Next gripe related to the advice in this guidebook: all the concerns and warnings are grossly exagerated. The roads are bad, but they don't swallow cars and break axles. There may be some crime, but there aren't people learching in the shadows to flatten your tires every time you stop. The busy season doesn't fill every hotel -- in fact without reservations, we got our first choice of hotels every night. I wonder how much more fun my trip would have been if I hadn't let this book make me so defensive!

Here's a tip for Costa Rican hotels: it doesn't matter how expensive the place is, the showers are lousy, with very little hot water and terrible water pressure. So don't pay $45 for a place just because it has hot showers when the place next door is only $25.

69 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Guide; Excellent vacation, October 20, 2001

By 

J. Turner (Minnesota United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet Costa Rica (Paperback)

I ended up a few weeks and travelling through parts of Central America. This travel guide is one of the ones I took with me, and I highly recommend it.

This guide proved to be invaluable, and saved me a lot of headaches and money. Traveling solo, I rarely make reservations or plans until I actually get there. This is what I did when I got to Costa Rica.

Thanks to this LP guide I can report the following highlights: $7 per night hotel room in San Jose, watching a live volcano (Arenal), spending time in the hot springs at the base of a live volcano, visiting a coffee plantation, hiking through Cloud Forest, and seeing several breathtaking waterfalls. Travelling through Nicaragua to Tortugero to watch the endangered turtles lay eggs was definitely a worthwhile adventure.

A few words of advice: If you are going to visit the rain forest, bring a poncho. It rains in the rain forest. A lot, especially during the rainy season. Perhaps that is why they call it a rain forest. Secondly, visit the local tourist offices in San Jose. I went in looking for some free maps, and got a lot of good advice. It never hurts to have some extra advice about where to go to supplement the guide.

A little dense, it becomes hard to visualize places when planning a trip, but the real value is when you are the ground and moving. Highly recommended.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I'm sure it was good once upon a time..., December 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Lonely Planet Costa Rica (Paperback)

I have used Lonely Planet guides for the past 8 years during my travels everywhere from Cambodia to New Zealand to Japan, and they have yet to disappoint... until now. I'm sure that this book was once good, but it was written nearly two years ago, and Costa Rica has changed so much since then.

With the recent real estate/construction boom, this book is simply too old. I spent a month in Costa Rica (Nov./Dec. 2001) and found that in many towns HALF of the hotels and restaurants mentioned in this book no longer exist or are under new names/ownership. Also, there is a large number of new lodging places that have been built in the past years that LP excludes. Many of these are the best deals in town.

For the ones that it does include, prices are slightly outdated (although not horrible). Bus schedules are less than accurate (understandable for a two year old book). Especially in remote places like Corcovado, this book was of little help and in certain cases genuinely misleading about ways to get around and the distance of certain extended hikes.

Like I said, I use LP books all the time and they are usually great. I'm sure a 5th edition would fix 90% of the problems with this book, but until then I would strongly recommend a different publication. My friend had the Moon Handbooks guide (which I had never used before) and it was significantly better than the LP in all aspects but maps. My recommendation would be to get that book (or a different one if you know that it is newly printed) and a DETAILED map of the country. That should treat you fine until the 5th edition LP comes out.

Enjoy your trip!