Popular National Parks in Costa Rica

Costa Rica’s National Parks are places wherein you can experience the goodness of nature at its best. Here you can get up close with steamy hot volcanoes, stunning waterfalls, and some of the remaining tropical rainforests. 

At present, there are more or less 26 National Parks in Costa Rica managed by SINAC (Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion), a department under their environmental ministry. The country’s efforts on environmental conservation and sustainable ecotourism are really impressive. This makes them produce protected areas more than 25% of the total land mass of the country. Not to mention, most of these protected areas are national parks. These national parks offer easier access to Costa Rica’s natural wonders. 

Here we have listed some of the most popular national parks in Costa Rica that you should visit:

Manuel Antonio National Park. Not depending on its relative small land area, this is the most popular national park. Best known for its wondrous beaches, its lowlands are rainforests home to a large monkey population especially the endangered squirrel monkey. It provides easy trails that will take you to the deepest face of the forest where you can find sloths, raccoons, and hummingbirds. To avoid large crowds, avoid going on early mornings. 

Corcovado National Park. This park is sometime named the most biologically intense place on Earth. It is a lowland rainforest in Central America that receives 508 cm of rain per year. It’s just so ironic that despite its popularity, it remains very remote as of the day. It has no developed roads, only dirt tracks. Anyway, the hassles it will cause you along the way will definitely vanish off as you see the 13 types of forest, stunned scarlet macaws on treetops, hawksbill, green and leatherback turtles, and the extinct Baird’s Tapirs. Other nature activities that you can try are snorkeling, camping and hiking. 

Poas Volcano National Park. Cool air, cloud forest mist, and aquamarine lagoon characterize the Poas Volcano National Park. Here you can step at the second largest crater in the world. There is a hiking trail that will bring you to Botos Lagoon exactly at the volcano’s crater. There are picnic grounds and giant ferns that will add beauty to your vacation.

Santa Rosa National Park. This national park closely resembles the African savannah. It has the largest area of tropical forest popularized by its wildlife, the Olive Ridley turtles, which considers the park an important turtle nestling site. It also has pristine beaches famous for world-class surfing.

Arenal Volcano Park. Here you can find Costa Rica’s most active volcano, the Arenal Volcano. The park offers hiking trails where you can find old lava flows, and a scenic view of the Arenal Lake. Your trip can be stunned by an overhear of the rumbling magma within the volcano’s center.