Completely updated every year (unlike most of the competition), Frommer's Costa Rica features gorgeous color photos...

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Product Description

Completely updated every year (unlike most of the competition), Frommer's Costa Rica features gorgeous color photos of the lush rain forest, the amazing array of wildlife, and the spectacular beaches that await you. Personally researched by a longtime resident, it's the only truly up-to-date guide that gives you such in-depth coverage of this fast-changing country, with recommended accommodations in every price category. You'll visit rugged wilderness preserves and sleepy beach towns, spectacular orchid gardens and mineral hot springs at the foot of a steaming volcano. There are adventures here to suit all ages and abilities: swooping from treetop platform to treetop platform on a canopy tour, taking a dip in a jungle swimming hole, spotting playful spider monkeys as you hike through lush foliage, windsurfing on Lake Arenal, or watching endangered sea turtles nest on the beach. With Frommer's in hand, you'll experience the wonder of Costa Rica's amazing biodiversity, as we point out the best places to see hundreds of unique, colorful species of animals and plants. You'll even get a color fold-out map!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #699179 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-02
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 404 pages

From the Back Cover
Experience a place the way the locals do. Enjoy the best it has to offer. Frommer's. The best trips start here.

• Expert advice on the best bird-watching, diving, surfing, and other adventures to get your adrenaline pumping.
• Outspoken opinions on what's worth your time and what's not.
• Exact prices, so you can plan the perfect trip whatever your budget.
• Off-the-beaten-path experiences and undiscovered gems, plus new takes on top attractions

Find great deals and book your trip at Frommers.com

About the Author
Eliot Greenspan is a poet, journalist, and travel writer who took his backpack and typewriter the length of Mesoamerica before settling in Costa Rica in 1992. Since then, he has worked steadily as a travel writer, freelance journalist, and translator, and continues his travels in the region. He is the author of The Tico Times Restaurant Guide to Costa Rica and Frommer’s Belize, as well as the chapter on Venezuela in Frommer’s South America, and is co-author of Frommer’s Cuba.

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Customer Reviews

Useful for planning, less useful for touring
First of all, congratulations on deciding to go to Costa Rica! This is a wondrous country full of wildlife, diverse ecosystems, and tourist-friendly people. We bought the Frommer's 2006 guidebook because it was the most recent publication in the bookstore (oops, i mean on Amazon). This book was very useful for planning, especially with the free country map that is included. You get a good idea of what to expect, the major tourist highlights, and some good ideas on places to stay. I recommend this book for those who 1) are joining a tour, 2) want to see only the major tourist spots, or 3) are not traveling on a budget.
Now, for the drawbacks. First, there are no maps in the book itself, which means that you have only a vague idea where any of the hotels and restaurants really are. This can lead to some serious problems, since most streets have no signs on them! Second, this book give you too few options for hotels. For example, Expedia.com lists many more hotels for the San Jose region. One of these (the Garden Court) is much more convenient if you NEED to stay next to the airport (it's basically an American hotel though, not the reason you flew all the way to Costa Rica). Third, the book is not so useful if you want to rent a car. The car rental companies all surprise you with extra fees and excessive deposits, which would have been nice to know about before dealing with the slick handlers at Advantage (go with Thrifty instead!). The book offers no help with how to navigate the San Jose area. The foldout map itself is not useful for driving, as it doesn't indicate which roads are good and which roads are virtually impassable. We later got a hold of a Lonely Planet guide, which I thought was far superior to the Frommers guide. The Lonely Planet will save you a lot of money and give you better maps of specific towns and regions. In case I don't write a review for that, the Lonely Planet Costa Rica guide gets 5 stars in my book.

As good as it gets
I found Frommer's Costa Rica 2006 to be as good as such guides get, and I am reasonably well traveled. By their nature, such guides are generalists, to be supplemented with specialist literature as you narrow your plans. Many other guides presuppose a specialty like ecotourism, and provide value in that way if such specialization happens to fit your plans. The Frommer's seeks to top the generalist guidebook segment, and succeeds and then goes beyond with more frequent updates than specialized guides. So, for current information on lodging and the like, you'll want a Frommer's. Update: P.S. I had to cancel the trip!

Good read
Great information on Costa rica and gives you a good overview. I used it to figure out what I wanted to see and then surfed the web for more information. Good guide book to use for things to do and tour numbers. Better than the National Geographic one I bought also. The NG covers mostly area and not tour information.