Steal this Itinerary: Long beach weekend in Costa Rica
Playa Grande is an easy long weekend from the West Coast of the US. It’s a chill little beach community with no fuss.
Itinerary: Playa Grande, Costa Rica
Fly into Liberia, Costa Rica:
The airport is small and customs is a pretty quick process. Costa Rican Customs is a two-step process, first you check in and then there is another process for scanning your luggage.
Don’t rent a car:
It’s a small country, but the roads are a bit rough, and local knowledge (which you don’t have) keeps up with shifting road conditions. As Play Grande is your destination, a car isn’t all that useful there. There are many transport services in Costa Rica and they are very reasonably priced. You book on-line ahead of time, and will receive some back and forth communication with the transport company. If you are staying at an AirBnB consider a stop at a grocery. Include the stop in your itinerary with the transport company - they will know where to stop. We used ‘I love Costa Rica’ car service - the trip one-way was $100, return trip was the same. The trip was slightly over an hour.
Rent a place:
Playa Grande has a number of beach front (or front-ish) rentals for reasonable prices. The neigborhood has a number of great little restaurants. They switch their menus up every day (depending on what is fresh) and are casual, easy, inexpensive, and friendly.
Surfing and beach walking:
If sitting in the sun, playing in the water, surfing or taking a surfing lesson sound appealing, this is an easy, sparsely populated, laid back beach experience.
Tamarindo is a little town just south of Play Grande and it can be accessed via local boat which crosses the mouth of the estuary.
How Long?
Depending on what your flights cost you can be happy with a minimum of three or four days…longer if you want to just settle and relax.
A closer look at our trip:
We landed in Liberia at 7pm, navigated the easiest customs process ever, and found our ‘I love Costa Rica’ car transport guy waiting outside in the moist warm night. In certain counties a guy holding a white board with my name on it can be a whole lot of comfort.
We rented an AirBnB in Playa Grande, which was an hour-and-a-half drive from the airport on windy, bumpy roads cutting through a dark jungle.
The driver dodged around pot holes, several soup can diameter snakes, and made a significant river crossing.
Kaety muttered and chuckled, “Of course there’s a river crossing.”
Every couple of miles we’d pass through crowds of people centered around a well lit tent serving food and beer…and then abruptly we’d be back into darkness.
The last couple of miles to our rental, whose address was literally, “Down the beach access trail on the left” the road was more of a packed path barely wide enough for our vehicle. The driver expertly navigated down said beach access trail and went directly to the house. When we got out we could hear, but not see, the surf pounding feet from the front porch of the place. The caretaker greeted us and with a combination of hand gestures and broken English clearly communicated, “Get on in there, I want to go to bed.”
I couldn’t wait to see the place in the light of the morning.
The place we rented, in the Palm Beach Estates neighborhood off the Playa Grande Beach was 50 ft from the ocean and included a beautiful pool. The house itself was a rambling, sweeping affair - it was obvious that it had started its life as a porch and then over time, addition by addition, had become an enclosed house.
It was perfect.
We body surfed all morning and then walked the beach where we visited every hermit crab, Bubbler Crab, and Isopod in a 2 mile stretch.
There was a little outdoor Soda a block away from us - the food was perfect.
Cafe Mar Azul treated us well and was easy on the wallet. Fresh, local food.
It took several swims in the 80 degree ocean, but we’ve almost achieved ‘chill the hell out’…otherwise known by the Costa Rican people as Pura Vida.
The neighborhood we were staying in had a limited number of places to eat, and we kind of tapped out the menu at the one nearest to us, so we decided to make the big trek over to the ‘other’ restaurant.
The other restaurant was a Grateful Dead hotel and bistro because…you know…why not.
Grateful Hotel and Bistro - relaxed outdoor seating, good music, good food.
We punched into the jungle, and just audible over the sound of death monkeys stalking us from the thick, was the faint and familiar tune, “…sometimes the lights all shining on me…”
I answered the call and sang, “…other times I can barely see..”
We ended our long strange trip into the jungle at the doorstep of the Grateful Hotel and sat down at an empty table.
We pursued the Grateful Dead themed menu, ordered a lot of meat and then settled into watch the very specific collection of people sharing the outdoor dining room with us.
All the good stuff and even comfort food for the American kids.
The food was great, the scene was chill and on theme, and the owner was a slice of pie from another time that had found his haven in Costa Rica.
We checked out of our rental and sat out on the beach for a couple of hours until our transport van arrived.
While we sat we debriefed the trip and life to date.
Endless beach and surf. Perfect for walking, splashing and surfing.
Three days in Costa Rica, which sounded like a ridiculously short time, felt like a week. It recharged us in all the right ways. Sand in the toes, and warm salt water can put a lot of things in perspective.
Liberia is an easy flight from Eugene (an hour longer than Hawaii for PDX people), easy transport scene once in the county (1.5 hour drive to oceanfront), and super easy beachfront accommodations ($300 ish) in a groovy laid back neighborhood.
As for life, we reaffirmed that choosing to jump into love 10-years ago had been the best idea ever - and everything else flowed from there. You can’t go wrong using love as an organizing principle.
And travel…we both feel like understanding the differences and similarities in the world’s people is critical to bringing us closer to what’s next.
Pura Vida. Life is good.
Playa Grande is a long sandy beach - very few tourists.
