Air Travel To Costa Rica and Domestic Airlines
Most people will arrive by air at one of the two international airports, San José or Liberia. From San José it is possible to take additional flights on one of the domestic airlines to your final destination. SANSA and NatureAir are the two domestic airlines with destinations near surfing areas on both coasts and destinations inland.
Arriving in San José is central and gets you within a two and a half hour drive of Playa Jaco. Jaco is kind of a party town with a lot of tourism, both local and international. The beach break there gets pretty fun if you hit it on the right swell. It’s a good place to start from and from there you can head south to Playa Hermosa for some killer beach break barrels. From San José you can also make the four and a half hour drive to the Caribbean side to the port of Limon and waves like the infamous Salsa Brava.
The other International Airport is Liberia, located in the Northeast part of the country. This is a great starting point if you are headed to Tamarindo and gets you within about an hour and a half by car. Liberia also makes sense for surfers who plan to surf breaks along the Nicoya Peninsula, or possibly take a side trip up into Nicaragua.
Air travel has gotten steadily more expensive to Costa Rica. If your departure city is one of the gateway cities like Miami, Atlanta or Houston, you may still be able to find prices in the $300-$350 range. Otherwise, prepare to get out your wallet. Fares to Costa Rica are generally consistent throughout the year and the days of cheapo flights bought way in advance are over. Flights from Canada and the continental United States will be in the $500 range. Off-season tickets are roughly the same and there doesn’t seem to be a trend towards cheap flights at this time. However, you can still save on hotels, car rental and other services during the off-season once you arrive.
We suggest you use www.bookingbuddy.com and search flights using good old-fashioned elbow grease. Booking buddy simply saves you the hassle of entering your flight info multiple times and makes it easy to search all of the other online services.
