Costa Rico: Planning a trip

Did you know that 28 percent of Costa Rica is preserved in National Parks? It has become one of the go-to places in the Americas especially if you are interested in sustainable or green tourism. Whether you want to lounge on pristine beaches or hike into the jungle, Costa Rica has what you are looking for

Visit Costa Rica is the official site of Costa Rican Tourism. Costa Rica is all about the outdoors and the environment and their tourism website highlights that. The site is easy to navigate and has loads of information. The first set of tabs includes Menu, Home, About Costa Rica, Sustainability, Planning your vacation, Multimedia, Maps and Press Room. There are also photos that take you to airlines, rental cars, hotels and travel agencies. If however you click on Planning Your Vacation it includes all the previous mentioned thing as well as requirements for entry into Costa Rico and exchange information for money.

A second set of tabs includes:

• ·          Sun and Beaches
• ·          Culture
• ·          Adventure
• ·          Ecotourism
• ·          Families
• ·          Cruises
• ·          Meetings & Incentives
• ·          Wellness
• ·          Honeymoon
• ·          Rural Tourism

Three-quarters of the way down the home page is another “Planning Your Vacation” section with six boxes that you can click. One of them is maps and it includes:

• ·          Tourist Zones
• ·          SanJosé (city map)
• ·          Main cities and towns
• ·          Best areas for surfing
• ·          Beaches with the Blue Ecologic Flag
• ·          Mains places for diving
• ·          Coco Island
• ·          Map of Incentives and conferences

When you click this box it changes the site and a photo appears at the top of the site and a list of links to all the main categories down the right side. It allows you to search for places to stay by type of accommodation and region that it is located in.

This is an interesting and comprehensive site but it does have a lot of duplication. So, if you can’t find something you are looking for, just click another tab or link, it probably will show up.

Tourism.co.cr is a very good site loaded with helpful information. The links to all the good information are right on the home page, you don’t have to go looking for it. The Tourism Center has links to valuable information about things like eco-tourism and Costa Rican volcanoes and beaches.

The volcanoes article is very useful and at the end there are links to other articles about similar topics. This is a site where you will want to be printing out some of the articles after you read them.

Tourism Costa Rica is the perfect site if you are looking for brochures to print out about Costa Rica, at the top of the homepage there are some tabs and one of the is brochures. When you click it, you go to another page where there is a list of brochures to choose from. One of them is Costa Rica Honeymoons and it is a very slick brochure that really makes Costa Rica look like the perfect romantic honeymoon destination. This brochure is provided by the Costa Rican Tourism Board. Another tab is safety tips and this is always an important one to read.

Costa Rica has a lot of offer to anyone looking for an eco-friendly nature vacation. These three websites will get you off to a good start when it comes to planning your trip.