Laura asked 8 years ago
Hi there! I apologize in advance if you’ve gotten questions like this before- I read the responses but thought it might be worth considering the most up to date information. My fiance and I are planning to honeymoon in August the 7th-17th, and after reading your post about visiting in rainy season we were assured and confident and booked our flights. Then we got in touch with a travel agent to arrange the rest of the trip’s details and she could not have been more opposed to visiting Costa Rica in August. Talk of floods, downpours, etc- it sounded just horrible. I know that’s not what you’ve talked about on your website, but I’m wondering if there is a certain time in August, or certain destinations that might have caused her such panic. She mentioned in particular that Monteverde could be a disaster and we could be flooded in as there is only one road. We were planning on splitting the 10 days between Arenal, Monteverde, and Manuel Antonio. I know you can’t predict the future, but to what extent do you feel it’s a gamble to head to those destinations in early August? We’re so confused. Thank you!
Jenn and Matt Staff answered 8 years ago
Hi Laura,
We get a ton of weather related questions and like you said we can’t predict what the future will be. But there are ways to get good information. When this happens we like to search for actual data to give it our best shot. We are also kind of science dorks so we check rainfall totals from years past whenever we can. You can see the summary we made in our Weather Post, which shows that overall August isn’t a bad month, especially when it comes to rainfall totals. I was curious so I dug a little deeper into this and looked up two places that track rainfall in two of the spots you are looking to go. The Soltis Center is on the La Fortuna/Arenal side of the mountains and their rainfall data will give you a good idea for La Fortuna. The Monteverde Institute is in Monteverde and their rainfall totals are summed up in this paper. That one is a little old but was the best I could find for a quick search. Both pretty much show a similar pattern as our weather post, basically it might rain but it shouldn’t be a washout if you are lucky. As for Manuel Antonio, we have lived near there for several years and can tell you that the weather is usually pretty good in August. It can rain during the day but is usually not for long and it rains the most in the evenings and nights. So long story short, the travel agent you asked might be just giving you the dry season/wet season pitch because they don’t know any better or it could be that they want to sell you hotels at the high season prices. We are travel agents here so if you are still looking for help, we would love to make you a great honeymoon itinerary. You can see more details about how it works on our Itinerary Help page. Hope this makes you feel better and have a great trip!