There are so many amazing beaches in Costa Rica.  Whether you choose to visit the deep blue Pacific on the west coast or the warm turquoise waters of the Caribbean to the east, you are sure to find your own little piece of paradise.  Here are just a few of the many great beaches of Costa Rica.  Feel free to share your experiences from your favorite Costa Rican beach.

Tamarindo - Located forty-seven miles west of Liberia, Tamarindo Beach is an easily accessible vacation destination.  This beach is a two-mile stretch of white sand and warm blue water with national parks to the north and south, and lush mountains to the east.  There is even a protected nesting area for Leatherback turtles to lay their eggs in the northern part of the bay. 

Surrounded by such beauty, this is a popular destination for honeymoons and weddings with accommodations available to fit every budget and a wide variety of restaurants and activities.  Tamarindo Beach is known for its great surfing and water sports.  Check out the weekly surf report here - http://tamarindobeach.net/surf/index.html.

Tamarindo is sunny year-round with warm temperatures.  During the rainy season, you can expect brief late afternoon showers, which makes for some stunning sunsets on the beach.  For the local weather forecast, go to http://tamarindobeach.net/weather/index.html

Playa Samara – Playa Samara is south of Tamarindo and about one hundred and fifty two miles west of San Jose.  This is a wide beach on a long, horseshoe-shape bay with steep cliffs along one side.  With its calm waters, Playa Samara is great for swimming and relaxation, making this a great beach for families to enjoy. 

The average temperatures here range from eighty to one hundred degrees year-round.  The beach is easily accessible by a well-paved road.  There are plenty of restaurants, bars, and hotels that come alive on Friday nights for singles and young couples to unwind.

Mal Pais – Mal Pais is located ninety-three miles west of San Jose at the southeastern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula.  By car, you can drive from San Jose to Puntarenas where you will catch a ferry to Paquera, and then on to Mal Pais.

Mal Pais is a rocky beach with sandy stretches dotted with seashells, extending three and a half miles east to west.  This beach is peaceful and quiet with secluded coves, reefs and tide pools with great weather all year.  A perfect beach for relaxation and sunbathing, but if you are up for some surfing, you will enjoy consistent waves with a long beach break.

Playa Hermosa – Playa Hermosa is located in the province of Puntarenas just three miles, or ten minutes, south of Jaco.  With some of the best and consistent surf breaks in the world, this beach is considered and expert surfers beach.  Both national and international professional surfers come to this beach to catch waves reaching as high as thirteen feet.  The best time to surf here is during the months of April through November.  The International Quicksilver Surf Championships competition is held here every year in August.

The strong currents at Playa Hermosa are not ideal for swimming, but the beach is great for lounging in the sun and is often empty during the week.  

Manuel Antonio – Manuel Antonio is about a three and a half hour drive south from San Jose to the Pacific coast.  The beach is located inside Manuel Antonio National Park.  This park is the smallest of twenty national parks in Costa Rica and the second most visited conservation area.  Due to its overwhelming popularity, the number of visitors has been limited to six hundred Tuesday thru Friday (closed Monday), and eight hundred on Saturday and Sunday. 

Thought to be the most beautiful beach in Costa Rica, this beach is a half-mile long with powdery white sand and bordered by deep green mangroves and palms, surrounded by wildlife.  Manuel Antonio has been rated one of the top ten beaches in the world.  To accommodate so many tourists year-round, there are many wonderful restaurants, hotels, and shopping nearby.

Playa Matapalo - Just twenty miles down the road from Manuel Antonio you will find Playa Matapalo.  This long, sandy beach is a peaceful and relaxing diamond in the rough that has yet to be discovered.  Perfect for swimming and watching the magnificent sunsets, here you are sure to find tranquil isolation.

Dominical Beach – Dominical Beach is an extremely popular surfing beach located twenty-eight miles south of Quepos, off the Interamerican Highway.  This two and a half mile stretch of beach is a surfer paradise with scattered beach breaks for all surfing abilities.

Many aquatic sports such as kayaking and snorkeling are common, but swimmers have to be very careful of riptides, or currents, when the tide goes down.  The little town of Dominical is just as popular as the beach with a laid-back atmosphere during the day, and a relaxed nightlife.

Cahuita – Located twenty-eight miles south of Limon City on the Caribbean coast, Cahuita is known as the threshold to the Talamanca Coast.  Here at Cahuita National Park you will find long stretches of sandy white beaches lined with rain forest and surrounded by wildlife.

Cahuita beach is great for snorkeling and swimming due to its amazing coral reefs offshore.  Cahuitas coral reef is the only mature coral formation after a major earthquake in 1991, emerging three feet above sea level.

Playa Punta Uva – Punta Uva, or Grape Point, located in the south Caribbean coast region, is a pristine black and white sand beach with a lush green and palm fringed shore.  This area enjoys stable temperatures of about eighty-two degrees year round.  With great swimming and relaxation, this is a good family oriented beach.

Manzanillo – Manzanillo, in the southernmost point of the Caribbean, is an “end of the road” beach near Panama.  The golden sand beaches here are uncrowded and tranquil with warm waters and normal daytime temperatures of about eighty-five degrees. Coral reefs close to the shore are ideal for snorkeling and scuba diving, best done during the months of September and October or at the end of May. While in the area, watch out for tucuxi dolphins, recently identified in Costa Rica for the first time in 1997.  �

Tags: beaches, costa rica, vacations

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Knowledge Base, Top Beaches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.