ARENAL & LA FORTUNA · COSTA RICA
Arenal & La Fortuna
Arenal and La Fortuna sit three and a half hours inland from the Guanacaste coast of Costa Rica, in Alajuela — so we offer two private ways to go: the Arenal Day Trip, with hanging bridges, sloths and a cacao farm, leaving before sunrise (from $450 per person, minimum 4), or a La Fortuna overnight, where you stay one or two nights and add hot springs, the waterfall or the volcano hike (from $800 per person for one night).
Arenal is the volcano people picture when they picture Costa Rica — a near-perfect cone with rainforest running up its flanks and a lake at its feet. It is also three and a half hours inland from your hotel, in a province most visitors to this coast never enter. That distance is not a detail. It is the single thing that decides how you should do this trip, and it is why we sell two versions instead of one. Below you will find both, priced honestly, along with what the volcano is actually doing these days — which is not what the brochures are still selling.
The volcano behind the day
Arenal erupted for forty-two years without stopping. From the 29th of July 1968 until October 2010 — one of the longest continuous eruptions recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Before that it had been quiet for roughly four and a half centuries, and people here called it Cerro Arenal, a hill. The 1968 reactivation took the villages of Tabacón, Pueblo Nuevo and San Luis with it.
Since 2010 the volcano has been resting. It is the longest quiet stretch since 1968: weak steam from the craters, nothing more. There is no visible lava at night, and there has not been for over fifteen years.
We say this plainly because half the brochures sold in this country still show a glowing red cone. Those photographs are old. If you come expecting lava, you will be disappointed, and that is not a good way to spend a day.
What is still true is the mountain and the forest around it — and that forest is a different world from the dry forest of the Guanacaste coast. OVSICORI and the Smithsonian still classify Arenal as active, and volcanologists expect it to wake again. Nobody will tell you when.
How far is Arenal from Guanacaste?
Arenal is not in Guanacaste. People are often surprised by this, because every hotel desk on the coast sells a trip there.
The volcano sits in Alajuela, in the northern lowlands, three and a half hours inland by road. You leave the dry forest behind somewhere around Cañas and the landscape changes underneath you — drier to wetter, thorn and deciduous to something green all year. By the time you reach the lake, you are in a different country to the one you woke up in.
That distance is the whole reason there are two ways to do this, and not one.
The day from the coast
Hanging bridges, sloths and a cacao farm, with lunch. Three and a half hours of driving each way and a 5:30 to 6:00 am start.
From $450 per person · minimum 4
Two days in La Fortuna
Everything the day cannot fit: the waterfall, the volcano hike, the safari float and the hot springs. You choose, we quote.
From $800 per person · one night
What lives there that does not live here
There is a simple test for whether a rainforest trip is worth the drive, and it is the toucan.
In more than twenty years of guiding on the Papagayo Peninsula, one of us has seen a single toucan there. One bird, once — a Keel-billed Toucan, and it was a genuine surprise. Around Sardinal, further inland, Collared Aracaris turn up now and then, but they do not live there either. These are not birds of this coast. The dry forest that makes Guanacaste what it is — thorny, deciduous, brilliant in the green season and bare in the dry one — is simply not their habitat.
Drive three and a half hours inland and the arithmetic changes completely. In the Tenorio rainforest corridor, Yellow-throated Toucans appear on more than seven out of ten birding checklists submitted to eBird. Keel-billed Toucans on six. Collared Aracaris on four. Those are not our numbers; they are the public record of every birder who has walked those trails, and you can check them yourself before you book.
The same gradient holds for almost everything people hope to see. Sloths are far more reliable in that wet forest than in the dry one. The frogs people photograph — the red-eyed tree frog on every postcard in the country — need humidity that this coast does not hold for most of the year. Howler monkeys you will hear from your hotel; spider monkeys you will not.
None of it is guaranteed. Wildlife never is, and anyone who promises you a toucan is either guessing or feeding one. What we can tell you is where the odds change, and by how much — and that is the honest reason to make the drive.
Should you do Arenal as a day trip or overnight?
Take the day if you have a fixed itinerary, if the volcano is a box you would like to tick honestly rather than tick badly, and if you do not mind a long day in exchange for sleeping in your own bed. It works. Thousands of people do it and go home happy.
Take the overnight if you would rather not spend eleven hours of a fourteen-hour day in a vehicle, if hot springs in the evening or a walk in the forest after dark appeal to you, or if anyone in your group would find a pre-dawn start and a late return genuinely hard.
If you cannot decide, write to us and describe your group. We will tell you which one we would book, and we will say so even when it is the cheaper one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we take the day trip or stay overnight?
If your week is tight and Arenal is one item on a long list, take the day. If you would rather not spend eleven hours of it in a vehicle, take the overnight. The overnight costs roughly twice as much, and the reason is simple: your guide and your vehicle are yours for two days instead of one.
How far is Arenal from the Guanacaste beaches?
Three and a half hours each way from Papagayo, Playas del Coco, Tamarindo and everywhere in between. There is no shortcut and no faster road. Anyone quoting you two hours has not driven it.
Is Arenal worth it if the volcano is not erupting?
That depends on what you came for. If you wanted lava, no — and we would rather tell you now. If you want rainforest, hanging bridges, hot water coming out of the ground and a very good chance of wildlife you will not see on the coast, then yes, comfortably.
Can we see the same wildlife closer to our hotel?
Some of it. Howler monkeys, iguanas, white-throated magpie-jays and a great deal more live in the dry forest and we run excellent days without leaving Guanacaste. But toucans, sloths in numbers and the classic rainforest species are a different habitat, and that habitat starts about three hours from here.
Do you run these every day?
Yes, subject to availability. Both versions are private to your group, with a minimum of four guests. We are usually able to arrange things with a few days' notice, though the dry season fills up.
How far in advance should we book?
A week is comfortable. In January, February and March, closer to three. If you are already in Costa Rica and something opened up in your week, message us anyway — sometimes it works.
When do we have to cancel by?
Seventy-two hours before your tour begins, counted from the start time and not the day. Cancel before that and your deposit comes back in full.
“We had an AMAZING trip with some pleasant surprise stops! Our trip consisted of seeing sloths, an authentic Costa Rican meal and going to the Arenal Hanging Bridges with a great view of Arenal Volcano. Miller went above and beyond to make this a very memorable trip for our family! He was very knowledgeable and we learned so much about Costa Rica.”
TripadvisorVerified reviewIs the drive the problem?
Arenal is three and a half hours inland, and for some weeks that simply does not fit. If what you wanted was a volcano and hot springs, Miravalles gives you both without leaving Guanacaste. If it was rainforest, waterfalls and a turquoise river, the Rainforest Combo at Tenorio is ninety minutes from your hotel.
Tell us what your week looks like and we will say which one we would book — including when the answer is Arenal after all.
More than 300 five-star reviews on Tripadvisor. Our guides’ eBird lists are public — you can read them before you write.
Part of our Nature Experiences
Or write to us
By the Guanadreams team, led by Miller Contreras — naturalist guide, born and raised in Guanacaste.
Book direct with the operator
- We run these tours ourselves. No middleman, no reseller.
- Private to your group — minimum four guests for this experience, no strangers in your van.
- The price you see is the price you pay: taxes and door-to-door pickup included.
Arenal stopped erupting in 2010, and we will tell you that before you book — because half the brochures sold in this country still won't. Meet the guides who drive this road every week →