Logistics and Transportation

• There are a few surprises awaiting the unsuspecting traveler when they first consider transportation in Costa Rica.
  - The first is that almost literally, all roads lead to San José. 
  - Beyond that geography, water and infrastructure can conspire to make it surprisingly difficult to get to some areas.  For example, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and Arenal Volcano National Park are two of the most popular destinations for travelers to Costa Rica and they're only 15 km apart as the crow flies.  Unfortunately as the cliché goes on to note, we're not crows.  Vehicle traffic must travel more than 100 km and four hours circumnavigating Lake Arenal on alternately paved and rugged roads.
  - Public buses make the trip in around eight hours and require a change at Tilarán.  Most people could walk the 15 km straight line distance in significantly less than eight hours (if it weren't also straight up and dense jungle).
  - Fortunately, there are alternatives.  Several local hotels and tour operators offer minibus/boat/jeep or minibus/boat/horseback options that not only cut hours off of the travel time but also pass through some beautiful forests and provide spectacular views.
  - Other destinations where transportation alternatives are important to consider include Tortuguero National Park (air or boat access only), Corcovado National Park and especially the northern gateway Drake Bay (roads impassable in the rainy season), the southern Nicoya Peninsula (ferry or overland), border crossing to Panama or Nicaragua (illegal to take a rental car across).
  - Rent a Car—Generally the most flexible way to travel. 
• San José is the capital of Costa Rica, the main population center, and located in the middle of the country surrounded by mountain ranges.  Main roads radiate out from San José in a web, and anywhere you go sometimes seems to bring you back to San José first before going anywhere else.
  - You might assume that since planes don't care about all the roads leading to San José, air travelers would catch a break and get from place to place without visiting the capital between each.  Unfortunately you'd be wrong.  Mainly because of demographics (the majority of the population lives in the Central Valley) Costa Rica's airlines suffer the limitation of a spoke system of routes.
• US Dollars (cash) are widely accepted (though not universally.  Always have some colones, especially for smaller purchases) and sometimes preferred because of Colón inflation.  Carry old style twenty-dollar bills in good condition.
  - If you are going to spend US cash, be adept at doing conversions on the fly and expect to receive your change in colones.
  - Do not exchange money outside the airport or on street corners.  There is no "black market" for dollars as in parts of Eastern Europe or Asia, and the only thing you'll get changing cash on the street is ripped-off.
  - US cash will cost you between 0-3% additional, unless you are poor at math - then it could be much more.  As with anywhere in the world, it is ill advised to carry large sums of cash in Costa Rica.  Use ATMs instead.
• Costa Rican Colones, Cash—Local currency is the most convenient for everything except large items like resort bills, airline tickets, and tour charges.  Even when credit cards are accepted, there is often a discount for cash.  Unless you're hard and fast on the tourist trail, it's best to plan to spend most of your money as Colones.
• Foreign Exchange - I almost never purchase foreign currency beforehand on any trips. 
  - In Europe and Australia, Bank of America had a reciprocal agreement with certain banks for use of ATMs without fees. 
  - They also had one in Mexico, but not in Costa Rica.  So I decided to purchase some (350,000 CRC or Costa Rican Colones - about $600 worth.)  That came in handy.  We just had to make sure to use it up before the trip ended.
  - Nowadays, brokers like Charles Schwab offer ATM cards without ATM fee worldwide.  So does Radius Bank.
• Our trip statistics:
  - Airline - SFO to CUN 2408 miles, CUN to SJO direct 783 miles but via IAH (812+1552=2364) miles, SJO to SFO via IAH (1552+1635=3187 miles) - CUN-IAH-SJO was upgraded to First Class.
  - Rental Car - 1300 km in 4 days in Mexico ($277), 1000 km in 10 days in Costa Rica ($445)
  - Ferry/Tours - Boat tours in Sierpe / Corcovado, Guided tours in Monteverde and Manuel Antonio
• Road conditions - mostly good roads everywhere in Mexico; also in Costa Rica, except for the road to Monteverde.
• Speed bumps - super high speed bumps in Mexico - easy to scrape the car bottom unless you go very slow.  On Costa Rica highways, slow trucks acted as speed bumps.
• Signage - sufficient for us to figure out where to go.  Otherwise, GPS (maps.me) worked great.
• Cops - there were cops in Merida everywhere, whereas in Costa Rica, we saw cops only when there was an accident on the highways.
• Full Moon on Jan 4 - wonderfully bright nights during our entire trip, when it wasn't foggy of course.
• You Can't Get There From Here - San Jose, Costa Rica is almost straight south of Cancun, Mexico - a two hour non-stop flight.  But when you are flying United, their hub and spoke meant flying to Houston from CUN to go back to SJO.  Well, more miles on this trip!