NOSARA, Costa Rica- After climbing for through pocked and muddy coastal hills in a tropical downpour, we skidded our four-wheel-drive Suzuki Jimny to a stop just before the road dipped into a deep, rain0swollen stream.

1. DESTINATIONS
What's it like to travel to Costa Rica
right now? Blissfully quiet in some
parts
Chris Kenning USA TODAY
Published 7:01 a.m. ET May 16, 2021
NOSARA, Costa Rica – After climbing for hours through pocked and muddy coastal
hills in a tropical downpour, we skidded our four-wheel-drive Suzuki Jimny to a
stop just before the road dipped into a deep, rain-swollen stream.
We were stuck, kicking ourselves for using backroads when a Costa Rican man on a
motorcycle pulled alongside. He waved for us to follow him into the water. We
looked at each other, took a breath and plunged ahead.
“Just keep going,” my travel partner said, before we finally emerged on the other
side, tires wet and muddy, hearts pounding, waving thanks to our friend.
By late afternoon we were descending into the lush, palm-studded Playa Guiones in
Nosara, a surfing hamlet on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, where American accents
dotted the beach as the clouds broke for one of the Pacific coast’s famous pink and
amber sunsets.
International travel planning difficult with shifting COVID-19
protocols
But it wasn’t the notoriously rough backroads that worried us most when – finally
fully vaccinated – we pondered our first foray back to international travel after a
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2021/05/16/costa-rica-travel-covid-prot…
8 min read
What's it like to travel to Costa Rica right
now? Blissfully quiet in some parts
NOSARA, Costa Rica – After climbing for hours through pocked and muddy coastal hills in a
tropical downpour, we skidded our four-wheel-drive Suzuki Jimny to a stop just before the
road dipped into a deep, rain-swollen stream.
We were stuck, kicking ourselves for using backroads when a Costa Rican man on a
motorcycle pulled alongside. He waved for us to follow him into the water. We looked at each
other, took a breath and plunged ahead.
“Just keep going,” my travel partner said, before we finally emerged on the other side, tires
wet and muddy, hearts pounding, waving thanks to our friend.
By late afternoon we were descending into the lush, palm-studded Playa Guiones in Nosara,
a surfing hamlet on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, where American accents dotted the
beach as the clouds broke for one of the Pacific coast’s famous pink and amber sunsets.
International travel planning difficult with shifting COVID-
19 protocols
But it wasn’t the notoriously rough backroads that worried us most when – finally fully
vaccinated – we pondered our first foray back to international travel after a pandemic year of
shutdowns.
We spent hours scouring the web to understand often-shifting entry requirements for various
countries, debating our safety and that of others in countries we visited, as well as the
logistics and uncertainty of navigating COVID 19 testing or insurance requirements

2. pandemic year of shutdowns.
We spent hours scouring the web to understand often-shifting entry requirements
for various countries, debating our safety and that of others in countries we visited,
as well as the logistics and uncertainty of navigating COVID-19 testing or insurance
requirements.
Costa Rica seemed like a place where we could safely spend most of our time
outdoors at beaches, cloud forests, national parks and open-air restaurants. Opened
to Americans in November, it seemed to have health care infrastructure to meet
return-testing requirements.
Halfway into our trip, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised its
travel warning for Costa Rica, citing a "very high level" of infections, a circumstance
shared by more than three-quarters of other nations. Costa Rica has had more than
275,000 COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has had
more than 32 million cases.
Costa Rica travel requirements
By then we’d arrived with little hassle. No tests are needed to enter. But 48 hours
before our flight, we had to fill out Costa Rica’s online Health Pass and purchase or
prove COVID-19 travel insurance coverage of up to $2,000 for hotel quarantining
and $50,000 in medical expenses. While you can get documents to prove coverage
from an existing insurer, we purchased it through links to registered agencies on the
same website, at a cost of $11 a day.
The website gives a QR code we showed before boarding our United Airlines flight
and to customs officials after landing in Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste.
Currently, national parks may operate at 100% capacity, bars and casinos can
operate at 50% capacity, and beaches are open from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to
the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
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3. That didn’t impact our activities around Nosara, which draws surfers, expats, yoga
buffs and families who dotted the small town’s cafes and restaurants, filled the
Gilded Iguana hotel, took yoga classes and enjoyed the golden-sand stretch of
Pacific beach framed by bluffs.
Signs requiring masks were posted at many businesses, with most people
complying. We spent days renting surfboards and eating outdoors at restaurants
such as La Luna, located on nearby Playa Pelada, which retains its fishing village
charm.
We stayed at the Living Hotel, where single-story rooms are set in a lush jungle
where we could hear a howler monkey, and devoured breakfasts of local coffee with
homemade coconut milk and plates of eggs, avocado, mango and rice and beans
called gallo pinto in open-air Destiny Cafe.
Things began picking up after the county opened to all U.S. states in November, said
manager Alejandro Gomez. Even after the shoulder season that began in April,
digital nomads and friends of expat Americans had kept it slightly fuller during the
still quiet time.
“If you look at some other areas, they are not working as we are here,” he said. “It’s
not crowded, but it’s enough.”
That’s not true across Costa Rica, where the number of tourists visiting in the first
three months of 2021 was down 76% from 2020, according to the Costa Rica
tourism board. Just 135,308 came from the U.S. at that time, compared to 405,000
in 2019.
Traveling in Costa Rica
We traveled next to the remote but increasingly popular beach town of Santa
Teresa, where a dusty coastal road jammed with surfers on ATVs is lined with shops
and restaurants. We stayed in a guest house up a dirt road so steep two Americans
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4. in rental cars slid off into a ditch during a rainy night, leading to a night-long effort
by locals to pull them out.
Younger crowds meant less mask-wearing in some spots. That wasn’t an issue in the
quieter Montezuma, a rugged and unspoiled coastal enclave with cafes and remote
beach lodging a short drive away, where we hiked to a hidden tidal pool fed by a
hillside waterfall.
After taking a car ferry from Playa Naranjo to the mainland, we drove up winding
roads into the Cordillera de Tilarán mountains, past cows and ranches, into the
famed cloud forests of Monteverde , where tropical winds condense in the cool air to
create one of the most biodiverse areas on Earth. Founded by pacifist Quakers in
the 1950s, it has turned into an ecotourism hot spot for its waterfalls, wildlife and
bird-watching, and hiking.
While benches in the towns of Monteverde and Santa Elena no longer had police
tape on them, and the famed Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve was
reopened, crowds were slim, and some restaurants, hostels and hotels remained
largely empty.
Yeisson Campos, who has run the Arco Iris Lodge for decades, said the pandemic
has been economically devastating for many, and it's been slow to pick up.
But it felt blissfully quiet. One night, we sipped a local Imperial beer on the porch of
a home at Arco Iris after a cloud forest hike, listening to monkeys and birds in the
mountaintops.
Our last stop was a stay in La Fortuna, the gateway to the Arenal Volcano National
Park. We found refuge from the touristy town at the Nayara Gardens, whose
complex of pools, luxury cabins and restaurants are tucked in lush gardens. Our
balcony included a whirlpool spa with private jungle and volcano views. In the
evening, we took in the outdoor natural EcoTermales hot springs, a lush and
romantic oasis that required reservations, masks when not in the pools and limited
visitors
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5. Getting home: COVID-19 tests and final memories made
Nervous about getting our COVID test results back in time for our return to the
U.S. – all air passengers ages 2 and older flying into the U.S. must present a
negative coronavirus test taken no more than three days before their flight or proof
they recovered from the virus within the past three months – we booked rapid tests
at the airport the day before our early morning departure, just in case.
We paid $65 each for rapid antigen tests at Daniel Oduber Quirós International
Airport in Liberia with Laboratorios Echandi, which promised results within an
hour. Outside the airport, we walked to a big white tent, registered and got our
noses swabbed. If you’re positive, you have to quarantine at a local hotel, and most
U.S. airlines require a 14-day quarantine.
We got the green light via email. We spent a blissful last night at El Mangroove, a
Marriott hotel on the Gulf of Papagayo, just a 20-minute drive to the airport. We
dined on mahi-mahi and swam in the dark-tiled pool, watching the sunset on a
wedding on the beach and boat bobbing in the bay.
The next morning, we showed our results to airline check-in agents and were back
in the U.S. safe and sound within hours – more aware than ever that the still-
shifting path of COVID-19 abroad would make foreign travel complex for some time
to come.
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