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Updated 13 November 2026
TLDR: A tailor-made Costa Rica trip works when it is built from transfer hours and nights per base, not a list of regions. Give most bases two nights, the Osa Peninsula three, and use a domestic flight where a road leg would cost a day. Agree that skeleton first; Ada Tours plans Costa Rica for agencies this way.
In this worked example, an adviser has ten nights for a Costa Rica trip: Tortuguero, Arenal, Monteverde, Manuel Antonio and the Osa Peninsula, with two nights in most places and one in Monteverde. On the map no hop looks long. On the ground, five of the nine full days begin with a transfer, and two of those legs take five hours or more.
Costa Rica is small, but its roads are slow, so every region the client adds costs a travel day. In ten nights that usually means three or four regions, chosen for the month, with lodge nights long enough to do what the client came for. If you are still choosing the operator, start with our guide to choosing a DMC in Costa Rica, which covers credentials and border rules.
Plan your client’s Costa Rica route with Ada Tours
Send the dates, available nights and essential experiences so we can set the regions before the lodges.
Costa Rica itineraries fail on timings because the roads, not the distances, set the day. The Government of Canada's travel advice, updated on 13 November 2026, says most roads are unpaved and paved ones are generally in poor condition. It lists potholes, sharp curves and landslides as rainy-season hazards and advises against travel at night. The UK FCDO says main routes are generally in good condition, while heavy rain can still cause landslides that block roads. Plan from the actual road and season, rather than assuming every tourist transfer follows an unpaved track.
The worked itinerary shows what that does to a trip. These are the legs as our programmes and one published drive-time table give them:
That is roughly 16.5 hours on four legs before the boat to the Osa lodge and the trip back out of Tortuguero. A domestic flight is the fix where a road leg costs a day. Costa Rica's tourism board (ICT) lists more than 10 domestic airports, served by Sansa and Green Airways, and Sansa's network includes Tortuguero, Drake Bay, Puerto Jiménez, Quepos, La Fortuna and Liberia. For an Osa stay, Drake Bay or Puerto Jiménez can provide an air gateway, with the onward boat or road transfer planned around the chosen lodge. Confirm the actual flight for the travel dates before building the itinerary around it. Our short Tortuguero route drives in and flies back to San José, subject to the flight booked for those dates.
Small planes bring their own limit. Sansa's baggage rules allow one 4.5 kg personal item on board and checked bags up to 76 by 46 by 34 cm, with the weight set by the fare. The DMC should check every flown leg against the client's luggage.
At Ada Tours, we choose the regions of an agency's tailor-made Costa Rica itinerary for the travel month, because the two coasts follow different calendars. The Costa Rica Tourism Board's climate guide describes the Pacific dry season from December to March, with April as a transition, and the rainy season from May to October.
The Caribbean side, where Tortuguero sits, has no defined dry season. The tourism board describes two relatively dry periods on that coast, February to March and September to October, with rain possible throughout the year. The ICT climate page gives the same months, and the ICT trade page notes that when it rains on the Pacific coast, it is often dry on the Caribbean.
Use those regional patterns to choose the route, then check conditions and park access for the actual travel dates. In practice:
In a tailor-made Costa Rica programme, most regions need two nights and the Osa needs three. Tortuguero can work with one only when the boat arrives by early afternoon and the dawn canal tour runs before the client leaves. Two nights give one full day, because the arrival afternoon and the departure morning go on transfers.
Our 14-day Best of Costa Rica programme shows how all five regions fit when the nights allow it. It gives two nights to San José, one to Tortuguero and two each to Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio. The Osa gets three, with a Corcovado day and a Caño Island day, and a flight back to San José for the last night. The adviser's ten nights cannot hold that shape, so something has to go.
| Plan | Bases and nights | Moving days |
|---|---|---|
| Adviser's 10 nights | San José 1, Tortuguero 2, Arenal 2, Monteverde 1, Manuel Antonio 2, Osa 2 | 5 of 9 full days, then a flight out |
| 10 nights, 3 regions | San José 1, Arenal 3, Monteverde 2, Manuel Antonio 4 | 3, then 3 hours to the airport |
| 13 nights, 5 regions | San José 2, Tortuguero 1, Arenal 2, Monteverde 2, Manuel Antonio 2, Osa 3, San José 1 | 6, one of them a flight |
Cut a region before you add a transfer day. The ten-night plan above drops Tortuguero and the Osa. It keeps the Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio core of our 10-day Treasures of Costa Rica programme, with longer stays in place of its Tortuguero night. A client who comes for turtles keeps Tortuguero and drops Monteverde instead.
Once the nights are set, the Costa Rica parks on the route decide what the DMC must book before the client flies. Canada's advice states that a permit is needed to enter national parks. The national parks agency, SINAC, sells entry for parks such as Manuel Antonio, Tortuguero, Poás and Carara through its online system.
Manuel Antonio is the park most often fitted into the wrong day. ICT's Manuel Antonio page says the park is closed on Tuesdays, opens 7:00 am to 4:00 pm, and sells tickets only online, with none at the gate; an ICT notice confirms the Tuesday closure. SINAC's booking system lets an agency buy at most 10 tickets per transaction and five transactions a day, so a group of 12 needs two transactions.
Corcovado needs a separate booking check. SINAC's reservation system gives an email route to the park, with payment by bank deposit. Have the DMC confirm the chosen sector, date, entry arrangements and required guiding before the lodge nights are fixed; an old visitor limit or closure notice cannot establish today's access.
On a tailor-made Costa Rica trip, the DMC should own every join between suppliers, because that is where a programme with many lodges breaks. In practice that means:
We plan Costa Rica for agencies within our Latin America programmes, from a five-day programme with Tortuguero to the 14-day route above. Other routes combine Costa Rica with Panama, Nicaragua or Guatemala, so the domestic flight, park day and border crossing sit in one plan. We work under your agency's brand or as Ada Tours, as our guide to working under your agency brand explains for Brazil. For a route that continues to another country, see one DMC for a multi-country trip.
For agencies considering a tailor-made Costa Rica trip with Ada Tours, a fixed two-region route can be the better sale for a first-time client with one week. Ada Tours sells fixed routes for those clients too: our six-day Classic Costa Rica programme uses San José, Arenal and Monteverde with the lake transfer, which is enough for a first visit.
Self-drive with pre-booked lodges suits a confident driver on short legs in the dry months. Given Canada's advice on road conditions and night travel, we would not suggest it for the Osa, for Tortuguero, which has no road, or for a client who will arrive after dark.
A good brief fixes the shape before the lodges. Send your DMC, including us, these points:
Ask the DMC to send back each transfer in hours, the nights per base and the park days, before it proposes lodges.
Send Ada Tours your Costa Rica dates, nights and client interests, and we will propose the regions, transfers and lodge nights that fit.
Ada Tours plans tailor-made Costa Rica programmes for travel agencies and tour operators, from short trips to two-week routes. We start from the client's dates, nights and interests, then propose regions, transfers and lodges.
Ada Tours can work under a customer's own brand or as Ada Tours, as the agency prefers. Confirm the branding when you send the brief, so the travel documents match.
Ada Tours suggests two nights in most regions and three in the Osa Peninsula, because two nights give one full day once transfers are counted. Tortuguero can work with one night when the boat arrives by early afternoon and the dawn canal tour runs before departure.
Ada Tours uses a domestic flight where a road leg would cost most of a day, such as the Osa Peninsula or the way back from Tortuguero. Check the fare's luggage allowance first, because small planes limit bag size and weight.
Ada Tours plans tailor-made Costa Rica trips for agencies around the calendar, because the Pacific is driest from December to March while the Caribbean has no defined dry season. February and March are the months when both coasts are at their relatively driest.
Ada Tours needs the travel dates, total nights, arrival and departure airports, group size and the client's main interests. With those we can propose where to spend the nights and how to move between regions.
