We decided to honeymoon in beautiful Costa Rica! Anyone who knows us may be surprised that we didn’t go to the far ends of the earth, but we chose a Costa Rica honeymoon because it was centrally located to our wedding destination and our home in San Diego. And because the airfare was reasonable we could splurge on on the fun stuff!
The avid travelers we are, we decided we couldn’t just stay on a resort the entire time so we picked two destinations and lots of fun activities!
While we typically plan our own vacations we used Scuba Travel Ventures to take off some stress and outsource our honeymoon planning. They did a fabulous job!
Visit La Fortuna and Arenal
A trip to Costa Rica is not complete without visiting La Fortuna. There are plenty of adventurous activities to do! We enjoyed volcano views and hot springs for most of our stay here. We loved La Fortuna so much we visited again on our backpacking trip. Read more about that here.
Relax in Natural Hot Springs
We stayed at the luxurious Tabacon Resort and their honeymoon package was a dream! It included a private dinner in the jungle, breakfast in bed, and the best massage ever! We spent our days lounging in the special guests only Shangri-La Gardens and playing in the dozens of natural hot springs pools.
Go White Water Rafting
One day we did a white water rafting tour. It was a fun adrenaline rush! It also included a tour to a sugar cane farm which was a little cheesy but fun!
Rent a Car
We decided to rent a car rather than travel in the shuttle and this was a great call. We were able to stop whenever we wanted. I highly recommend renting a car in Costa Rica. Be sure to look out the window on your road trip. We spotted a sloth!
Swim in the La Fortuna Waterfall
When leaving La Fortuna to head to Guanacaste we stopped at the La Fortuna waterfall. It is so amazing! The 400+ steps are a breeze going doing but you may get winded on the way back up. Once at the bottom jump in and swim under the powerful and epically beautiful waterfall. At 70m high it is quite impressive. We even went back during our second trip to Costa Rica. Insider tip: get there right when they open to have the waterfall all to yourself. Also, Google has the wrong time. It says 7am they don’t open until 8am.
Visit Playa Conchal and Guanacaste
For the second half of our Costa Rica Honeymoon we stayed at the Westin Playa Conchal. This hotel is a fancy resort and is HUGE! We had to get around via golf cart. We had the all-inclusive option and there are a ton of nice restaurants to choose from. As part of our honeymoon we had access to the adults only pool which was nice for a lazy day of reading, but of course we liked the more lively big pool as well! The beach at Playa Conchal was a little disappointing. There isn’t much sand and when you go in for a dip you get taken out by the waves. The sand drops off immediately. This was comical as I was trying to look sexy beach chic! There are also a lot of local vendors on the beach constantly trying to sell you stuff so must hotel guests stick to the pool area. Our room here was a dream! We last minute upgraded to their best one and it was well worth it! We had an outdoor tub and tons of room!
Go Scuba Diving
However we don’t stay sedentary long. While lounging by the pool is appealing, we were ready to scuba dive! We booked with Aquacenter Diving in Playa Flamingo and did 4 dives over 2 days. When the dive master scooped us up at the hotel in his rickety truck we knew we were back in traveler mode! The diving was fantastic. While we didn’t see a huge manta that they are famous for, we did see sharks, eels, rays, and huge schools of fish! It is so beautiful here.
Day Trip to Tamarindo
We also left the resort and drove over to Tamarindo one day to check out the beach scene. We had beers at Witche’s Rock and watched the surfers. It is such a fun beach town! We later returned to Tamarindo and spent two nights there. Read more about that trip here.
Our Costa Rica honeymoon was so fabulous! I highly recommend Tabacon and The Westin Playa Conchal if thinking of honeymooning in Costa Rica. It was seriously a dream!
A couple of years later we revisited Costa Rica with my sister and explored much more of the country. Read about that trip here.
Want more information to plan your Costa Rica Honeymoon? Check out the Costa Rica Lonely Planet here.
Happy on our Honeymoon,
-Ray
