Guanacaste, Costa Rica (North Pacific)

Long summer days and beautiful beaches are two phrases that best define what Guanacaste is all about. Guanacaste is in Costa Rica famous Dry Forest which gets very little rain year round making this the perfect destination for beach gateaways and the oportunity of a life time for touring. A province for the active soul looking for a great vacation, Guanacaste draws visitors with its stunning shoreline, incredible bird watching, amazing horseback riding, excellent surfing, superb snorkeling and wonderful mountain lake windsurfing. With so much to do, it’s easy to understand why so many people come to visit this amazing province. From your beach hotel we can provide a great selection of day tours for you to enjoy.

Forming the eastern borders of Guanacaste are a chain of volcanoes that stretch out to join the Cordillera de Guanacaste and Cordillera de Tilaran mountain ranges. Offering some truly terrific hiking tours, tourists can trek their way to the summit of a number of volcanoes, including Rincon de la Vieja Volcano Area, to enjoy some really breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. Passing through lovely lush dense forests, which play host to a fabulous array of exotic plant from the tropical dry forest and wildlife, many rare and endangered animals and birds live here including jaguars and tapirs. From these mountains also flow various rivers that roll down to form an alluvial plain drained by the Rio Tempisque. This river in turns nurtures the province before emptying itself into the Golfo de Nicoya.

A region steep in culture, the name Guanacaste is derived from the word quahnacaztlan, which is a native word for the guanacaste tree. This tree is the national tree of Costa Rica.

One of the easiest ways to get to Guanacaste is to fly into the Daniel Oduber International Airport in Liberia or we can provide transfer from other areas in Costa Rica . A major reason why tourism has boomed in this region, this airport receives flights from all over the world especially the continental U.S. Most sites of this region are off the Pan-American Highway (Hwy. 1), which is scenic in its own right, moving northwest through Guanacaste and continuing almost to the Nicaraguan border.

Rich in natural beauty, Guanacaste is home to a number of national parks and nature reserves, the most popular of which are the Rincon de la Vieja National Park, the Parque Nacional Guanacaste, and the Parque Nacional Santa Rosa. There are a number of canopy tours found all over the province for anyone, of any age to enjoy. Visit the Parque Nacional Rincon de la Vieja for a superb rainforest canopy tour, while just south of Playa Ocotal you will find the Congo Trail Canopy Tour at Artola, home to a beautiful tropical dry forest. With so many canopy tours to discover here, it is now wonder why Guanacaste is among the most popular tourist destinations in the country of Costa Rica.

The City of Liberia

LIBERIA, COSTA RICA is the capital of sunny Guanacaste province in northwest Costa Rica and gateway to some of the most beautiful beaches and National Parks of Costa Rica. Currently most travelers use Liberia as a base to visit areas such as the Rincón de la Vieja Volcano and Santa Rosa National Park, or as an overnight stop to or from the beaches of Guanacaste and on the way to Nicaragua. Travelers also frequently spend a night in the city before or after their flight to Liberia International Airport (LIR).

Liberia is a friendly and open city compared to other Costa Rican cities of the same size. Locally, the town is often referred to as "la ciudad blanca" (the white city). An appropriate name due to its whitewashed, colonial houses, built with “bahareque” (similar to adobe houses), a type of clay found all around the city with a particularly white color. Liberia is the only town in Costa Rica to which the term "colonial" could be applied.

Local fiestas, the biggest being July 25, "El Día de la Anexion", celebrating Guanacaste's Province annexation to Costa Rica, give color to Liberia with parades, horseshows, cattle auctions, rodeos, fiestas and roving marimba bands. There's also the "Fiestas Civicas de Liberia" in the last week of February and first week of March with Tico style bullfights (1 bull, 300 people and one small bullfighting ring). If you want to attend, make sure you make your hotel reservations as far in advance as possible.