El Camino De Costa Rica

A 280km hike which starts on a remote Caribbean beach, winds its way deep into the mountains, takes you to remote villages and towns, and then descends back down to the sea at the Pacific Ocean after having crossed the entire country.

Pass through land where world famous coffee and fresh fruits are grown. Stay with locals, enjoy their cuisine, and hear their stories. The birds are out of this world beautiful. Rare flowers can be found growing along the route. Poison dart frogs hide among the rocks.

It’s a fun experience in a tropical landscape that will surprise you and teach you about a very wonderful culture.

Here is a short documentary film about my hike along el Camino de Costa Rica, full of information, with an aim to show the beautiful environment of this country.

Map of the Camino de Costa Rica, a 280km route across the country, from ocean to ocean. (Map from Farout.com an essential app for navigating this trail)

Overview

Distance – 280km // 175mi
Start – Parismina, just south of Tortuguero National Park
End – Quepos, just north of Manuel Antonio National Park
Best Season – December through April
Highest Elevation – 2,365m // 7,760ft
Lowest Elevation – Sea level!
Time to Complete – One to three weeks
Direction – East to West is most common
Environments – Beaches, Rainforest, Mountains, and Remote Farming Communities
Biodiversity – More than 900 bird species, and over 9,000 plant species

At the first marker along this trail, in the small and remote village of Parismina right on the Caribbean Ocean. Our day would be spent walking along the beach and looking for monkeys and sloths in the trees!

Our Experience

My girlfriend and I hiked this trail in June of 2025, we did not use a guide company, and we have not done a Camino style hike before. We do however have extensive experience with thru hiking trails in North America, like the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail, and many others. I want to say this upfront, as that is the perspective which this guide is written in! An American thru hiker who likes camping in the woods.

In the end, we both had a lot of fun experiencing the Costa Rican way, and felt like we learned a lot! I think some people would absolutely love it, and then others it may not be for them, but I guess that is something to be decided for yourself! A Camino is definitely very different from my past backpacking trips, but I think for me that was a good thing. To experience something completely new.

The birdwatching was one of our most favorite parts of the hike as a whole. The landscape and diversity at different elevations from the beach to the high mountain rainforests was incredible. The people were all extremely friendly, and we loved seeing how Costa Ricans live. The food was delicious, we liked trying new things, and experiencing authentic meals. Hiking through the small towns and villages was a lot of fun. Everything was new and fun.

We did have troubles speaking the language, and sometimes wished we could camp in the woods rather than stay with a host, but overall we really enjoyed the experience.

El Camino

The point of this trail is to experience the Costa Rican culture. To travel through their villages and towns. To experience their traditional meals and food. To see their agriculture and walk through fruit and coffee farms. To interact with the locals, and to learn from the way that they live life.

The point of this trails creation (from my understanding) was also to help bring more tourism to areas of Costa Rica which previously did not have it. While some places in the country are swimming in tourists, and the money that maybe comes from that, other areas are lesser known and more remote. So by hiking this trail it is also helping to support communities in a new way, by bringing in a new source of income which previously did not exist.

People that love the land, they love their country, and this trail is giving them a way to show others how great it can be. Through a little restaurant with delicious foods, to accommodations which are being improved and made more unique with each passing year. Guided tours of bird watching, tours of locally grown coffee. Stores and shops up and down this route which previously would only service the small local community. It is a nice idea, and I think so far it is going well!

To hike across the country and through the mountains is one amazing thing, experiencing the nature of the surrounding landscape. It is even more special and prominent in the case of this Camino to see how Costa Rica lives, and that is the main focus of this trail.

A view down into a river valley from up in the mountains. We would wind our way down, through a small town, some coffee farms, and then back up into the mountains in the distance.

Language Barrier

During this hike you must interact with locals, as frankly… that is kind of the point of this hike! Some of them will know English, but most of them do not, and knowing at least some Spanish yourself will go a very long way!

Nightly accommodation with host families, shopping at stores, meeting new people along the route, ordering food, buying bus tickets, asking for help, and asking for directions. These things and many more are made a lot easier if you know a handful of words in Spanish. More of course would be better! but hey, we only knew a handful and it worked out.

Prior to this neither my girlfriend nor I knew any Spanish at all. Even now many months later I am not good at it, but it did add a fun element to our hike to try and learn as we went. We started doing Duolingo about three months in advance, and I felt it gave us at least a good enough understanding of basics to be able to figure things out.

Beyond that, and google translate is your best friend! It can translate signs and menus with the camera, you can have it record someone speaking to see what they say, or you could type in sentences to then try yourself to speak outload. Don’t forget to download the language for offline use, incase you don’t have cell service.

Not knowing the language was at times stressful given how often we would need it, but more often than not it was a fun extra adventure of this hike.

Navigation

El Camino is marked at times with little red birds painted on signs along the route. Sometimes they will have arrows which show the way. These to me are great, but I consider them more as “confidence markers” to let you know you are on the right path, rather than something I would rely on entirely as my only source of navigation. You must instead have a map of some sort, or gps device with the route loaded onto it.

We used the phone app ‘Farout’ to navigate and help us plan this trip, and it turned out to be absolutely invaluable. In my mind there is no question that you need to get this if you plan on hiking without a guided service. From finding the way through these remote mountain paths, to getting contact info for locals so you can coordinate with them. Finding stores for food and water, places to stay, and seeing distances of things to come. Farout also has a comments section for users, where you can find up to date info from those who came before you, which provides a lot of great insight. It is updated constantly with changes to the route and new information as well!

I cannot recommend Farout enough! Don’t forget to download the maps for offline use.

Accommodation & Camping

Wild camping in a tent in the woods on public land isn’t really a thing on this trail. You instead need to contact locals to stay with them every night. Either camping in their yard, or sleeping in their guest house. They feed you breakfast and dinner, and for a small fee it is an incredible deal. These people are very friendly and want to help, and overall this system is a highlight of the whole experience.

Typically for a place to sleep, breakfast and dinner, it would cost around 30,000col or 60usd. Some places were cheaper and some more expensive. Some places offer tent camping for less if you’re on more of a budget. Then sometimes there were also ‘luxury’ options more like resorts along the way if you want that. Overall the cost always felt like nothing compared to what we got in return, and considering the large meals, in the end this was quite cheap.

Using the Farout app you can find contact info, some basic information, the location on a map for where they live, and comments from others who stayed there. Then use Whatsapp to communicate, which basically acts as texting and phone calls internationally. You do need to coordinate with these people in advance, and can’t just show up unannounced. It is recommended to get in touch a couple weeks in advance, and that would be great, but we found a couple days in advance was good enough.

It is worth noting that stealth camping or wild camping would be very difficult along this route and I would recommend against trying to do so. A lot of the time you are walking a road which is lined on both side by private land that is fenced off, and in other places the jungle is too thick to set up a tent. That said, for the highly motivated and experienced individual, you could stealth your way through much of the trail. Just know that it would not be very ideal, and some areas you absolutely cannot.

Us with one of our favorite local hosts, and a photo with the view just outside their house!

We both carried large ponchos, and small travel umbrellas. This is a rainforest afterall!

Season & Weather

Most hike this trail in January, February, or March. That is when Costa Rica has the nicest temperatures for recreating outside, and that is when the rain will be least frequent. The mud won’t be crazy, and overall I would highly recommend hiking this trail over the winter months, in the dry season.

Rainforest

We hiked in June and because of that had daily storms which began around noon everyday, and wouldn’t stop until nightfall. Temperatures were blazing, and humidity was off the charts. We still enjoyed it! But we definitely had to be more careful with electrolytes, water, and basically would start our days at 4am to try and avoid afternoon storms. Just do it in the winter instead!

I was beyond happy to have a travel umbrella with me to navigate the daily storms, and would highly recommend you bring one as well regardless of season. Same goes for a rain jacket which you can trust to keep you dry. These things will make your trip much more enjoyable!

Colder than you think

The high point of the trail is around 3,300m / 7,700ft of elevation, and even for us in the middle of the summer it got close to freezing when at this location. It gets colder in some sections along this route than you would think, and you should definitely bring more layers than I did. I did not even have a light fleece, and regretted it. I took the ‘tropical, south america, near the equator’ thing a bit too seriously.

You are winding your way up and down mountains for nearly the entirety of this hike, and so you should bring some warmer clothes with you to deal with that. A fleece sweater is a great idea at the very least. A puffy jacket, and something warm for your legs would be good too. You never have to carry much food on this trip, so making up a little of that weight with clothes and rain gear was a happy exchange for me.

We kept the binoculars in hand at all times. And occasionally would fight over the one pair

Birds

Over the course of this hike we saw a crazy amount of new birds, and nearly all of them are colored like the rainbow! Toucans flying through the sky look like bananas with wings. The jungle was alive with fun new bird calls at all hours of the day and night. Some sound like an old dialup computer logging onto the internet, and some are like pokemon and their call sounds like their name.

If there is ever a hike you should bring binoculars on, it’s this one! We used them everyday, all the time, and kept them close at hand. I would also recommend using the app Merlin Bird ID, which helps identify birds based on their colors or song.

The birds were a big part of the fun in this trip for us. It was something we constantly payed attention to, and every single day saw new birds that made it feel even more exciting. I forget the number but both of us added roughly 200 birds to our life list in the end.

A hummingbird taking a rest, and a very interesting flower kind of thing which I cannot identify

Animals

Costa Rica does have things like Jaguars and crazy snakes, but it is highly unlikely that you would ever see either of those. This trail does pass through a lot of nature, but you are rarely in the “wilderness” and more often than not are walking a road through agriculture land or villages.

What you will see however (if you have a keen eye) are sloths, poison dart frogs, and a wide variety of monkeys! I personally loved waking up in the morning to the howler monkeys in the distance, and seeing so many spider monkeys up close was cool. These you don’t have to look hard to find and there are three different species to try and identify.

Sloths can be difficult, but they love the Cecropia trees, and can be spotted high up in them sleeping during the day. Look for those trees, and you will likely find a sloth eventually if you are motivated to do so. The poison dart frogs are very tiny, but very colorful. When I say tiny, I mean smaller than your pinky nail, so you really have to look hard. I would look for them near water sources just before sunset.

A sloth in its favorite kind of tree (spotted by Jo), and a nice monkey doing monkey things, hopping around the bush

1. Food that I carried with me for snacking through the day, more than I needed admittedly given the frequency of stores. 2. An incredible meal we had at a very random persons home who said they had food if we wanted some. 3. A wonderful bakery where I stocked up for the rest of the days snacking

Food & Resupply

Food is never a problem on this trail because of how frequently you pass by towns and small stores. Often it seemed that two or three times a day we were able to buy some snacks or a full meal along the way. The host families you stay with every night will also feed you dinner and breakfast.

I still think it is smart to carry some extra along with you, some snacks and at the very least a day or so of food just in case. Some sections are a bit more remote and you might find you need it, or it could help to keep moving when energy levels are low. We also came across situations where the store we planned on buying food at were closed. Most of these stores are just family owned spots in towns with very small populations. Their hours of operation may not be standard, and you never really know! In the end it’s part of the fun.

The Farout app will of course help to find places to buy food as stores and restaurants are often marked on the map. Sometimes they aren’t and you will actually find more than expected, but it is a good starting point.

Cost

Overall this was a fairly inexpensive experience for us. We were in the country for three weeks, we did an incredible amount of things in that time, and everything was very affordable. From hotels, to shuttles, guides, meals, I spent less than I thought I would.

We got a flight from Florida to San Jose for 80usd, then pretty much everything around the country was about 1/4th the cost of what I would pay in the US for anything similar. As an example a meal that would cost 20 dollars in the United States would cost roughly 6 dollars here. The typical cost for staying with a host family for the night was 30,000 colones, or 60usd. This included a large dinner, breakfast, a place to sleep indoors, shower, and really friendly people.

This affordability really made the experience that much better! As being stressed about cost is not good, and I felt like I was much more inclined to try new things. Eat at restaurants, and stay with hosts, instead of maybe looking for ways to sneak around.

Something worth noting is that you need to carry cash! Along the trail I think there is only one or two ATM machines or banks, so before beginning I would find one and take out money. My girlfriend and I both took out roughly 500USD before starting (in Costa Rican Colones) and paid for everything with that. Around the halfway point when we found another ATM we did this again.

Near the end we walked through palm oil farms, and coffee plantations. It’s very interesting to be right in the middle of where these things grow, and are actively being harvested around us!

Guide Services

We did not use a guide to do this trail, but the vast majority of people do! And chances are you should as well. The guides will do all of the logistics for you, show you the best places, and offer the best all around experience. It is costly to do it this way, but this trail has a lot of planning and coordinating (much more than other long hikes) and I think the cost would be worth it for a lot of people.

Urritrek is the most well known company to look into, and who I would probably recommend. We met one of their groups, and the guide was extremely friendly. Though I do not have any knowledge beyond that.

For us… the language barrier was difficult, the public transport to get to the trail was difficult, and the daily need to contact locals was often a bit overwhelming. I definitely don’t think you need a guide, but it’s worth considering because of this. If you’re interested in putting in the effort without one, then go for it!

One thing I have maybe noticed is that possibly the guide services seem to skip my favorite section (1a), and instead begin their journey on one of my least favorite sections (1b.) Something to look into yourself, as I really loved starting our hike with a little boat to a small Caribbean town, walking the beach for miles, and staying at a beautiful resort with a super fun boat ride the next day….. it is one of the most memorable parts of my entire trip. I do understand if they skip this as it is a very remote area, and would likely be quite difficult to accommodate, but it feels worth mentioning as I would not want to miss it.

A handful of photos from our first day on trail, in and around the Green Gold Lodge in section 1a

Hiking Without a Guide

We did not use a guide company and you don’t need to either. Assuming you have experience with long trails already or are willing to plan, it’s not problem. Would a guide enhance your experience? Probably? But it’s not a requirement, and we were happy to not have one ourselves.

There are a couple things you need to know before you start, and then you can set fourth on your own! In these first few stages a couple people need to know in advance of your arrival when you will be there so they can prepare. These people would be the Green Gold Lodge in section 1a as they provide a boat ride you will need, and then an indigenous guide in sections 3 and 4 who must hike with you while you are on their land.

So please take the time to plan where you will stay and what you will do daily, until you have finished stage four. I will offer an example itinerary below with my thoughts to hopefully provide insight into your first days in the country.

Beginning the Trail

I would recommend budgeting yourself two days of public transport to get from the airport to the beginning of this hike. We split the journey in half, and stayed the night in Siquirres. You could alternatively stay the night in San Jose and then do the whole journey the next day.

• Fly into San Jose, then bus or taxi to the city – First thing, take a small amount of money out at one of the airport ATMs. They have large fees, so maybe wait until you can go to a bank to take out more (as you will need cash along this trail.) There are many Taxis waiting outside the airport, they are red and look kind of official, and I think this would be easiest to get to the city. There is a hidden bus stop at the airport (here: 9.998760, -84.204331) if you would rather that.
• Bus or Shuttle from San Jose to Siquirres – Ultimately your destination in San Jose is the large bus terminal, so that you can take a bus to Siquirres. For us and at this time that terminal is called “Gran Terminal del Caribe.” An easier alternative would be to take a shuttle! The bus system can be confusing (especially if you don’t know Spanish!) and it would definitely be easier to hire a shuttle from San Jose to Siquirres. There are many shuttles which do this and would cost a little more, but save you some headache and time.
• Bus from Siquirres to Cano Blanco – Siquirres is a small town that is easy to walk around. There are many restaurants, and a couple very large grocery stores. We stayed the night at the Sleep&Go! and then the next morning took the bus to Cano Blanco. The bus station is called “Estacion de Intercantonal de Buses de Siquirres,” and it is in the heart of the town along the main street.
• Take a boat to Parismina – Cano Blanco is a small parking lot with a restaurant along a waterway. Shortly after arriving by bus a boat showed up, and it took us to the remote and tiny village of Parismina, where you will start el Camino.
• Begin your hike! Walk to the Green Gold Lodge, stay the night there, and they will take you on a long and beautiful boat trip to Muelle Goshen the next day. This first section was my absolute favorite of my whole hike! Please plan this journey in advance, and get in contact with the Green Gold Lodge so they can prepare for your arrival. We contacted them a week before, and then sent an update as we were on our way in the bus system to let them know we were on time.

Two days of travel for us; a plane, three buses, and a boat… to get to the start. We would take another boat the next morning to truly begin our walk!

Indigenous Territory

In sections three and four, you must hire a guide to go through the Cabecar Nairi Awari Indigenous Territory. It would be illegal to not, and highly disrespectful. You cannot just ‘sneak through’ as along the way you pass a handful of small native villages. You can find all of the info for this in the Farout app on how to hire a guide, and who to contact using Whatsapp. So to continue my example itinerary from above…

• After the boat trip from Green Gold you begin section 1b at Muelle Goshen. Following roads through farms it is entirely flat and easy with a couple stores along the way. I would recommend making a full day of this and then staying the night in Cimarones with a host family. Going further into section two is not advised as camping would be difficult, and then your timing for the indigenous territory would be off.
• Section two is a long climb up from sea level into the mountains, and there are many options for hosts to stay with at the end of this section. You would then be sleeping perfectly where you need to be right at the edge of the indigenous territory, to then meet your guide the next morning. Beware that you will likely not have cell service here, and need to coordinate with your guide in the days before to confirm meetup times and plans.
• Sections three and four you will then hike with a guide. These are the hardest sections of the entire trail and it is recommended that you break this day up into two. We did it in one, but it was a long day. You will meet your guide in the morning where the trail leaves the road and enters the native land. Make sure to setup a meeting time in advance. Our guide was Clenet, and he was AWESOME! In the middle of stages three and four you have the option to eat lunch or dinner at the indigenous community, or stay the night there.

After all of that…. you are free! Hopefully you still try to plan ahead and give host families time to prepare for your arrival, but it’s not nearly as important as these first stages. Typically we would plan a full day or two in advance, and even more than that would be great if you can as it is helpful for them.

Can you do all of these sections faster than what I’ve outlined above? For sure! We did, but you might wind up slower than expected, which then impacts the lives of these people who you are relying on.

A couple photos from the Cabecar Nairi Awari Indigenous Territory

Thank you!

Goodluck to anyone who is headed out to try El Camino de Costa Rica themselves. Hopefully the information I have provided here is useful to you in some way. In the end like any long trail there are so many ways to go about it. Regardless of whether you hike this with a guided service, or do it thru hiker style on your own I hope you enjoy.

Thank you to all of the families we stayed with along the way, thank you to Barber for helping us with information before we began, thank you to the Green Gold Lodge for being so awesome, and thank you to Clenet for leading us through the Jungle. Thank you to Jo for coming up with the idea to do this trail in the first place, and making this experience more fun than it ever could have been if I were just by myself.

Pura vida

The trail ends in the town of Quepos, a great location for tourism as there is a popular national park nearby. It’s right on the beautiful Pacific Ocean, so take a dip after your 280km walk, and congrats