Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge

An hour from Manuel Antonio, the Carara Biological Reserve sits in a transition zone between the humid southern Pacific and the dry northern Pacific, home to both rainforest and dry forest. Its 4,700 hectares of lush forest shelter abundant wildlife: parrots including magnificent macaws, roseate spoonbills, toucans, white-faced monkeys, and crocodiles, all amid extremely varied flora and towering ...

Owned by the Tropical Science Center, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is a private organisation dedicated to environmental research and tropical conservation. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve covers more than 5,000 hectares. It was established in 1974 thanks to the efforts of Wilford Guindon, one of the area's first settlers, and biologist George Powell. It is a region of extraordinary ...

Tortuguero is a swampy area of very humid rainforest where you travel by dugout canoe along man-made channels. It is a true slice of Amazonia, home to crocodiles, frogs, monkeys and sloths, and more than 240 bird species. Tortuguero's beaches are not suitable for swimming but form an important nesting ground for green turtles, which come ashore to dig their nests from July to October.