Philipp asked 6 years ago
Dear Jenn & Matt,
my girlfriend and I are planning our three-weeks vacation at the end of September in Costa Rica. Your homepage is very helpful and we really enjoy reading all your tips.
Our first stop will be Tortuguero (two nights). We will arrive at San Jose Airport on Sunday evening and so far planned to take a domestic flight (Sansa Air) from San Jose to Tortuguero on Monday at 12:00 pm.
In several posts you do not recommend domestic flights any longer. Now we are a little bit insecure about pursuing our plans. What do you recommend in this situation. Taking a domestic flight or the public transfer with bus and boat (which we will also take back)? Thanks a lot in advance.
Best regards, Philipp & Vanessa
Jenn and Matt Staff answered 6 years ago
Hi Philipp and Vanessa,
Thanks for visiting our site! We’re glad to hear that it’s been helpful.
Unfortunately, as mentioned, we are not currently recommending domestic flights. We don’t want to cause alarm, however feel it’s safer and more reliable to keep to ground travel. If you haven’t bought your flight tickets yet, we can help you arrange a private shuttle to La Pavona. From there you can get the public boat to Toruguero. The price is $215 for this trip, plus the small amount for the boat. You can read more about the boat process in our post, Getting to Tortuguero. The shuttle trip is approximately 3 hours and the boat takes another hour or a little more. So, if you left San Jose in the morning, you could catch the 11:00 am boat and be in Tortuguero around the same time as you would flying. If you’d like to line that up, just contact us through our Shuttle Bookings page and we will get back to you right away. If you are locked into your plane tickets, I would recommend asking the hotel in Tortuguero what their experience has been with the reliability of the airline at that specific airport recently. Hope this helps and you enjoy Costa Rica!