Thompsons vs the World

Costa Rica was the one country that seriously concerned me during the budgeting for our trip. I knew that it definitely wouldn't be cheap but I struggled to figure out in advance just what our daily spend might look like. Trabee App   I've used the Trabee Pocket app throughout our trip for tracking every single penny (or peso, colones, ringgits etc!) so that we have an accurate idea of what we're actually spending. This is critical for us as we're not earning during our year away so when the cash runs out, that's it! The Trabee app lets you log your total budget for your trip, then you can log each item you spend on, assigning each thing to a category (such as accommodation, transport, food etc). You can then download this data into an Excel file or view the stats in the app to see how you're doing. It's been a great way for me to stay in control of our spending and make sure it lasts us all year! Initial budget So, after a huge amount of trawling the intern...

We found some real gems in terms of places to stay in Costa Rica, so I'm putting these down in this post in case anyone is planning a trip at any point in the future! I have to say that we got extremely lucky with our bookings - I did spend a huge amount of time researching and checking reviews (partly as I was pretty nervous about costs in Costa Rica during the planning process) but even so I was really surprised at how fab most of the places we stayed were. Budget When we were drafting the plans for Costa Rica I'd set a max budget of £70 a day for accommodation (though I hoped it would come in a bit under this). On average we spent £64 a night on accommodation for the four of us (taking off my Mum's share for her 16-nights with us). We could probably have gone for slightly cheaper spots but I was reluctant to go for anything too basic with the kids/my Mum (and having spent ages trawling through booking.com I don't think we'd have been able to shave too much off th...

Playa Conchal just outside Tamarindo. Much easier to get to with a car! I thought I'd add one more post to my Costa Rica collection with a bit of info on car hire in the country, since it was one of the things we struggled to decide on before we arrived. During the (extended) planning phase for Costa Rica I was adamant that we weren't going to hire a car - mainly based on a mildly terrifying image in the Lonely Planet of a 4x4 powering through a pretty fast looking river, and accompanying info in said Lonely Planet detailing how many river crossings you could expect to come across and how to navigate them. Attempting to drive a hire car across a tropical river had 'divorce level argument' written all over it! HOWEVER. When we arrived (with my Mum in tow) it quickly became apparent how difficult it was going to be to get around without our own wheels. There were very few Ubers in San Jose that would seat all five of us (which lead to a very long wait at the airport on ar...

We opted to spend the last two weeks of our time in Costa Rica on the Southern Caribbean Coast, taking some time to chill have a pretty hectic first three weeks! We'd learnt over the first few weeks of the trip that the more 'formal' elements of homeschooling - maths and english - worked much better when we had a base for at least a few days, as the days spent travelling/moving around and then settling back in/packing up were pretty much write-offs in terms of any school work. I'd originally got a few stops booked on the Caribbean Coast - including Tortuguero - but we took the decision to scrap a couple of stops and focus on staying longer in the Southern part, to give ourselves some time to chill out on the beaches, catch up on school work and also to save some cash! Manzanillo Our first stop for five nights was Manzanillo, right at the end of the road on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica before Panama (and there really is only one road!).  The beach at Manzanillo (afte...

We spent three nights in a tiny village called Cabuya on the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, just outside Montezuma. This was more of a stopover on the journey between Quepos and Tamarindo; we had a few extra nights so I thought we'd fit in some time in this part of Costa Rica. Cabuya Cabuya is a tiny village right outside Cabo Blanco National Park, the smallest national park in Costa Rica. The neighbouring town of Montezuma is still pretty small but has a quite a few accommodation options, restaurants etc - Cabuya is about another 15mins along the very uneven, unpaved road (definitely the most challenging bit of our driving in Costa Rica!). Cabuya has a handful of places to stay and 3-4 eateries spread out along the main (quiet) road. We stayed in a fab cabin at Villas Cabuya , which comprises 4 cabins around a communal pool. We pretty much had the pool to ourselves so we spent quite a while just chilling out here. The entrance to Cabo Blanco National Park is just down the r...

Up in the North of Costa Rica, the La Fortuna/Arenal region is a base for so much fun! We didn't feel like we had the time to fit in a stay at both Monteverde (basically on the other side of Lake Arenal) and La Fortuna so we made the call to base ourselves in La Fortuna as it looked like somewhere we could squeeze in a LOT of fun stuff. So buckle up, there's quite a lot to get through! La Fortuna The Lonely Planet didn't exactly rave about the town of La Fortuna itself so I wasn't sure what to expect. In the end, we really loved it - yes, there are tourists but it doesn't feel too busy or hectic. Like much of Costa Rica, there were few (if any) buildings over two storeys so it didn't feel too built up and pretty much EVERYWHERE has a view over the Arenal Volcano (which towers above the town).  There were loads of nice little restaurants (especially the ones slightly off the main road), good supermarkets and plenty of little souvenir shops (which the boys always ...

After a huge amount of scouring the internet, I'd just about figured out that the stretch of coast north of Tamarindo was our best bet in November for a shot at seeing nesting turtles. The best bit of info I could find online was this handy guide that tells you when and where sea turtles nest in Costa Rica. Whenever I'd dreamt about a trip to Costa Rica, seeing nesting turtles was right up at the top of that list - a proper bucket list type activity. Both boys love nature too so were equally as excited! The turtles There are several types of turtles that nest along both the Pacific and Caribbean coast of Costa Rica including the giant leatherbacks (very rarely seen), hawksbills, olive ridleys and green turtles. It was the green sea turtles that we were aiming for on the Nicoya Peninsula around Tamarindo; I'd read that the Las Baulas Marine Park was the place to see the turtles, but when I finally managed to get through to them I was told that they hadn't had a nesting ...