My wife and I are looking forward to spending a couple of weeks in Costa Rica soon. We are staying at Monteverde, Arenal and Manuel Antonio.
What is the best method of having money available to pay for meals, excursions and so forth? Cash (which I feel uncomfortable carrying large amounts), credit card, travel checks or a combination of cash & credit card?
Also I'm training for a half marathon and want to run but I realize the roads don't sound great and likely don't have shoulders to run on. What have others done to keep running other than a run on the beach?
Thanks!
A couple of questions about planned trip to Costa Rica
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Don't bring travelers checks, but bring some USD and use ATM's to pull out colones, plus use credit cards for hotels. Do ask if there is a discount for cash as some hotels may offer it.
Many restaurants will list dollars on their menu, so my rule of thumb is to pay dollars when prices are posted as such and to use colones when they are posted.
You'll find you can use USD for park entry fees, tips for driver and guides so you do use cash more often than in some locations.
Not a runner, so can't help you with that, but you are correct in that roads are not in the best condition in certain areas.
About running: We do have terrible roads and in many no sidewalk, specially because the places you visit are vacationing spots and most of the sidewalks are only in the main cities in San Jose or Alajuela for naming some. I would run in the installations in the case of Monteverde, in Arenal I would take a walk into the rainforest (there are many guided and not guided tours with clear paths marked) and on Manuel Antonio I would run in the beach on the afternoons, mornings are too hot. Manuel Antonio is huge, has 4 different beaches so that would be a fun and very efficient way to explore them and discover which spots you like better and show them to your wife later on so you stay where like the most. But because you mention you wouldn't like to run in the beach you can run on the vegetation next to out, it would be a little more fresh since there are many palm and tropical trees to make shadow. If not the other option is to run by the roads side which it's not the most safe option but not totally crazy, most athletes in here do, and depending on the time of the year you can take a low transit road and run for even 8 or 10min without seeing a car.