Costa Rica Honey Moon - Live this unique experience in one of the world's greatest honeymoon destination.

Costa Rica, the complete destination

¨The best of Costa Rica is its people¨, states a popular promotional slogan, a phrase that is indeed true as visitors discover the warm hospitality of the Ticos, the nickname by which the country’s inhabitants are widely known.

While traveling through the Costa Rican countryside it is always possible to find helpful people ready to offer a friendly gesture, as well as provide the necessary help for orientation or whatever is needed at the moment.

Costa Rica is a peaceful society – the national army was banned by the Constitution over fifty years ago.  Its Democratic system provides for presidential elections every four years; however the law currently bans reelection.  Costa Rica has gained international recognition for its educational system assuring a very high literacy rate, an achievement very few countries in Latin America can claim.

It is located only ten degrees (north latitude) from Ecuador, in the Central American Isthmus.  Its territory, with a maximum width of 280 kms. In the northwest, 170 km, in the center and 120 km. In the southeast, it has a total surface of 51.900 km2.

This earth piece that hardly represents 0.3% of the total surface of the planet, stays 5% of the world biodiversity, it has more species of birds than the United States and more variety of butterflies that the whole African continent, facts for which this Central American nation, has been won a justified international recognition.  In its diverse habitats and ecosystems cohabit 13 thousand species of plants, 2 thousand species of night butterflies and 4.500 days, 163 species of amphibians, 220 of reptiles, 1,600 of fresh and salt water fishes, and at least 850 species of birds.

In this wide natural landscape, Costa Rica also has diverse types of forest like the caducifolios, swamps, pluvial forest, herbaceous lagoons, cloudy forests, moors, yolillales, groves, coral reefs, riverside forests and marshy forest. Besides its friendly people and democratic system, over 25% of the country’s territory is protected by law, assuring strict procedures for preservation of the natural environment.  Dozens of national parks and protected areas are scattered around the country, providing proper habitats for the conservation of a wide variety of floral and faunal species.

Covered by the warm and transparent waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, Costa Rica limits to the north with Nicaragua and to the south with Panama and it is distributed geographically in seven provinces:  San Jose, Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago in the Central Valley, Puntarenas and Guanacaste in the Pacific and Limon in the Atlantic.  Depending on the area, the temperatures of the country register average of 24, 9 centigrade degrees in the low parts, 16, 3 centigrade degrees in the high parts and 20-centigrade degrees in the Central Valley.

In terms of infrastructure, Costa Rica offers a very functional highway and secondary road network connecting the entire country.  It only takes two and half hours to travel by land from San Jose to Limon on the Caribbean coast and no more than ninety minutes to travel from San Jose to the nearest beach on the Pacific coast.

Traveling around is a relaxing experience if contemplation of nature is the desired activity.  Most of the main vacation areas possess an airstrip.  In some cases an airport is located in a nearby community and an established ground transportation system is used to provide access.

For leisure or business, Costa Rica has a lot to offer.  The tourist infrastructure has consistently improved in recent years.  The ingredients combine perfectly for Costa Rica to be considered the destination in Central America:  beautiful nature, excellent tourist services and very warm people.  Come and visit Costa Rica, you won’t regret it.

NATIONAL PARKS

The national parks and equivalent reserves of Costa Rica protect the best of the country’s natural and cultural heritage.  These outstanding wilderness areas preserve a large number of the plant and animal species that live in the country.  They provide shelter for 205 species of mammals, 845 of birds, 160 of amphibians, 218 of reptiles and 1,013 of salt and freshwater fish.  At the same time, they protect most of the approximately 10,000 species of vascular plants that have been identified, which corresponds to almost 4% of the total number of plant species that exist in the world.  They also conserve almost all of the existing habitats, such as deciduous forest, mangrove swamp, rain forest, herbaceous swamp, cloud forest, paramo, holillo forest, oak forest, coral reefs, riparian forest and swamp forest.  Furthermore, the national parks and equivalent reserves have a wide range of natural and cultural assets.  There are geological and geophysical features, such as active volcanoes, hot springs, caves and relict mountains that are the result of plate tectonics setting.  There are historic and archaeological sites, such as battlegrounds and pre-Columbian settlements.  Beaches and waterfalls are among the many scenic attractions.  There are islands that are vital to conservations they are used as nesting sites by the brown pelican and magnificent frigate bird.  The last remaining stands of the Mesoamerican tropical dry forest still grow in some of the protected wilderness areas.  Lastly, the beaches are where the huge arribadas of sea turtles take place.

The Costa Rican system of national parks and equivalent reserves consists of 35 units that cover a little over 622,000 hectares of land.  This is approximately 12, 2% of the entire national territory.  Because of the remarkable biological wealth and diversity found in these wilderness areas, they have become a new Mecca for ecotourists, naturalists and research scientists who wish to admire and study the exuberance of tropical nature in Costa Rica.