Side Trips

San José makes an excellent base for exploring the beautiful Central Valley and the surrounding mountains. For first-time visitors, the best way to make the most of these excursions is usually to take a guided tour, but if you rent a car, you'll have greater independence. Some day trips also can be done by public bus.

Guided Tours & Adventures

A number of companies offer a wide variety of primarily nature-related day tours out of San José. The most reputable include Costa Rica Expeditions (tel. 2257-0766; www.costaricaexpeditions.com), Costa Rica Sun Tours (tel. 2296-7757; www.crsuntours.com), Horizontes Tours (tel. 2222-2022; www.horizontes.com), and Swiss Travel Service (tel. 2282-4898; www.swisstravelcr.com).

Before signing on for a tour of any sort, find out how many fellow travelers will be accompanying you, how much time will be spent in transit and eating lunch, and how much time will actually be spent doing the primary activity. I've had complaints about tours that were rushed, that spent too much time in a bus or on secondary activities, or that had a cattle-car, assembly-line feel to them. The tours below are arranged by type of activity. In addition to these, you'll find many other tours that combine two or three different activities or destinations.

Bungee Jumping -- There's nothing unique about bungee jumping in Costa Rica, but the site here is quite beautiful. If you've always had the bug, Tropical Bungee (tel. 2248-2212; www.bungee.co.cr) will let you jump off an 80m (262-ft.) bridge for $65 (£33); two jumps cost $95 (£48). Transportation is provided free from San José twice daily. These folks also offer paragliding tours.

Canopy Tours & Aerial Trams -- Getting off the ground and up into the treetops is the latest fad in Costa Rican tourism, and there are scores of such tours around the country. You have several options relatively close to San José, and one actually in the city center.

The quickest and easiest way to experience a zip-line canopy tour from San José is to head to the La Sabana park and take the new Urban Canopy Tour (tel. 2215-2544). Given the fact that this tour is set on a relatively flat patch of city park, it is neither as extensive nor exciting as the other options listed in this section. Still, the tour has eight zip-line cables, with the longest being some 200m (650 ft.) long. The tour costs $20 (£10).

Another option is the Rain Forest Aerial Tram Caribbean (tel. 2257-5961; www.rainforesttram.com), built on a private reserve bordering Braulio Carrillo National Park. This pioneering tramway is the brainchild of rainforest researcher Dr. Donald Perry, whose cable-car system through the forest canopy at Rara Avis helped establish him as an early expert on rainforest canopies. The tramway takes visitors on a 90-minute ride through the treetops, where they have the chance to glimpse the complex web of life that makes these forests unique. Additional attractions include a butterfly garden, serpentarium, and frog collection. They also have their own zip-line canopy tour, and the grounds feature well-groomed trails through the rainforest and a restaurant -- with all this on offer, a trip here can easily take up a full day. If you want to spend the night, there are 10 simple but clean and comfortable bungalows, which cost $110 (£55) per person per day (double occupancy), including three meals, three guided tours, taxes, two tram rides, and unlimited use of the rest of the facilities.

The cost for a full-day tour, including both the aerial tram and canopy tour, all the park's other attractions, and transportation from San José and either breakfast or lunch, is $105 (£52). Alternatively, you can drive or take one of the frequent Guápiles buses -- they leave every half-hour throughout the day and cost $2 (£1) -- from the Caribbean bus terminal (Gran Terminal del Caribe) on Calle Central, 1 block north of Avenida 11. Ask the driver to let you off in front of the teleférico. If you're driving, head out on the Guápiles Highway as if driving to the Caribbean coast. Watch for the tram's roadside welcome center -- it's hard to miss. For walk-ins, the entrance fee is $55 (£28); students and anyone under 18 pay $28 (£14). Because this is a popular tour for groups, I highly recommend that you get an advance reservation in the high season and, if possible, a ticket; otherwise you could wait a long time for your tram ride or even be shut out. The tram handles only about 80 passengers per hour, so scheduling is tight; the folks here try to schedule as much as possible in advance.

Turu BaRi Tropical Park (tel. 2250-0705 or 2428-6070; www.turubari.com) is another similar attraction that aims to cover as many bases as possible. Located about 90 minutes outside San José, this park features a series of gardens, trails, and exhibits set in a deep valley that you can reach by means of a gondola-style ski lift, by cable and zip-line canopy tour, or on horseback. Down in the valley, you can wander around the botanical gardens, orchid gardens, and butterfly gardens, or grab a bite at the typical Costa Rican restaurant. The gondola ride here actually features enclosed cabin cars (with windows that open) and doesn't provide nearly the sense of intimacy or contact with the forest that the Aerial Tram does. Admission is $60 (£30) for adults, $55 (£28) for students, and $40 (£20) for children; all the various adventure tour options cost extra. However, various combination package tours, with or without transportation and meals, are available.

Finally, the folks at Original Canopy Tours (tel. 2291-4465; www.canopytour.com) have their Mahogany Park operation, located about 1 hour outside of San José. The tour here features 10 platforms, and at the end you have the choice of taking a cable to a ground station or doing an 18m (60-ft.) rappel down to finish off. The tour takes about 2 hours and costs $45 (£23). Package tours with transportation from San José are also available.

Day Cruises -- Several companies offer cruises to lovely Tortuga Island in the Gulf of Nicoya. These full-day tours generally entail an early departure for the 2 1/2-hour chartered bus ride to Puntarenas, where you board your vessel for a 1 1/2-hour cruise to Tortuga Island. Then you get several hours on the uninhabited island, where you can swim, lie on the beach, play volleyball, or try a canopy tour, followed by the return journey.

The original and most dependable company running these trips is Calypso Tours (tel. 2256-2727; www.calypsotours.com). The tour costs $99 (£49) per person and includes round-trip transportation from San José, a basic continental breakfast during the bus ride to the boat, all drinks on the cruise, and an excellent buffet lunch on the beach at the island. The Calypso Tours main vessel is a massive motor-powered catamaran. A second runs a separate tour to a private nature reserve at Punta Coral. The beach is much nicer at Tortuga Island, but the tour to Punta Coral is more intimate, and the restaurant, hiking, and kayaking are all superior here.

Exploring Pre-Columbian Ruins -- Although Costa Rica lacks the kind of massive pre-Columbian archaeological sites found in Mexico, Guatemala, or Honduras, it does have Guayabo National Monument, a small excavated town that today is just a small collection of building foundations, cobbled streets, aqueducts, and a small plaza. Costa Rica Sun Tours (tel. 2296-7757; www.crsuntours.com) offers a day trip here for around $130 (£65) per person. If you have a car or are an intrepid bus hound, you can do this tour on your own. Admission to the park is $10 (£5), and you can usually find a guide at the entrance for around $5 (£2.50). See the below section on Turrialba for more information on Guayabo.

Hiking -- Most of the tour agencies listed above offer 1-day guided hikes to a variety of destinations. In general, I recommend taking guided hikes to really see and learn about the local flora and fauna.

Horseback Riding -- Options are nearly endless outside of San José, but it's more difficult to find a place to saddle up in the metropolitan area. The La Caraña Riding Academy (tel. 2282-6106; www.lacarana.com) and Centro Ecuestre Valle Yos Oy (tel. 2282-6934) are both in Santa Ana, and offer riding classes as well as some guided trail rides.

Mountain Biking -- The best bicycle riding is well outside of San José -- on dirt roads where you're not likely to be run off the highway by a semi, or run head-on into someone coming around a blind curve in the wrong lane. Several companies run a variety of 1-day and multiday tours out of San José. The 1-day tours usually involve a round-trip bus or van ride out of downtown to the primary destination, such as the towns of Sarchí and Turrialba, and the Irazú and Poás volcanoes. Several of these tours are entirely or primarily descents. Costa Rica Biking Adventure (tel.2225-6591; www.bikingincostarica.com) offers a variety of mountain-biking tours using high-end bikes and gear. A 1-day trip costs between $80 and $160 (£40-£80) per person.

Another company offering mountain-biking trips is Coast to Coast Adventures (tel. 2280-8054; www.ctocadventures.com), which, in addition to its 2-week namesake adventure, also designs customized mountain-biking trips of shorter durations.

A unique new option is to take a Railbike Tour (tel. 8303-3300; www.railbike.com). This tour involves a mountain bike rigged to a contraption that fits over abandoned railroad tracks, running through the countryside outside San José. The full-day tour costs $75 (£38) and includes all equipment, plus a light breakfast and full lunch.

Rafting, Kayaking & River Trips -- Cascading down Costa Rica's mountain ranges are dozens of tumultuous rivers, several of which are very popular for white-water rafting and kayaking. If I had to choose just one day trip out of San José, it would be a white-water rafting trip. For between $75 and $110 (£38-£55), you can spend a day rafting through lush tropical forests; multiday trips are also available. Some of the most reliable rafting companies are Aventuras Naturales (tel. 800/514-0411 in the U.S., or 2225-3939), Exploradores Outdoors (tel. 2222-6262), and Ríos Tropicales (tel. 2233-6455). These companies all ply a number of rivers of varying difficulties, including the popular Pacuare and Reventazón rivers.

The Sarapiquí River is also a popular waterway for day trips outside of San José. Ecoscapes Highlights Tour (tel. 2297-0664; www.ecoscapetours.com) runs a jampacked trip here that combines a stop at the La Paz waterfall, a visit to a banana plantation, a rainforest hike, and a boat ride on the river for $83 (£41) per person, including round-trip transportation, breakfast, and lunch.

Perhaps the best-known river tours are those that go up to Tortuguero National Park. It's possible to do this tour as a day trip out of San José, but it's a long, tiring, and expensive day. You're much better off doing it as a 1- or 2-night trip.

Holy Smoke! Choosing the Volcano Trip That's Right for You

Poás, Irazú, and Arenal volcanoes are three of Costa Rica's most popular destinations, and the first two are easy day trips from San José . Although numerous companies offer day trips to Arenal, I don't recommend them because there's at least 3 1/2 hours of travel time in each direction. You usually arrive when the volcano is hidden by clouds and leave before the night's darkness shows off its glowing eruptions.

Tour companies offering trips to Poás and Irazú include Costa Rica Expeditions (tel. 2257-0766), Costa Rica Sun Tours (tel. 2296-7757), Horizontes (tel. 2222-2022), and Swiss Travel Service (tel. 2282-4898). Prices range from $30 to $50 (£15-£25) for a half-day trip, and from $50 to $110 (£25-£55) for a full-day trip.

The 3,378m (11,080-ft.) Irazú Volcano (tel. 2551-9398) is historically one of Costa Rica's more active volcanoes, although it's relatively quiet these days. It last erupted on March 19, 1963, the day that President John F. Kennedy arrived in Costa Rica. There's a good paved road right to the rim of the crater, where a desolate expanse of gray sand nurtures few plants and the air smells of sulfur. The landscape here is often compared to that of the moon. There are magnificent views of the fertile Meseta Central and Orosi Valley as you drive up from Cartago, and if you're very lucky, you might be able to see both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Clouds usually descend by noon, so get here as early in the day as possible.

The visitor center up here has information on the volcano and natural history. A short trail leads to the rim of the volcano's two craters, their walls a maze of eroded gullies feeding onto the flat floor far below. This is a national park, with an admission fee of $10 (£5) charged at the gate. Dress in layers; this might be the Tropics, but it can be cold up at the top if the sun's not out. The park restaurant, at an elevation of 3,022m (9,912 ft.), with walls of windows looking out over the valley far below, claims to be the highest restaurant in Central America.

If you don't want an organized tour, buses leave for Irazú Volcano daily at 8am from Avenida 2 between calles 1 and 3 (across the street from the entrance to the Gran Hotel Costa Rica). The fare is $7 (£3.50) round-trip, with the bus leaving the volcano at 12:30pm. This company is particularly fickle; to make sure that the buses are running, call tel. 2530-1064, although that might not help much, since they often don't answer their phone, and speak only Spanish. If you're driving, head northeast out of Cartago toward San Rafael, and then continue driving uphill toward the volcano, passing the turnoffs for Cot and Tierra Blanca en route.

Poás Volcano (tel. 2482-2424) is 37km (23 miles) from San José on narrow roads that wind through a landscape of fertile farms and dark forests. As at Irazú, there's a paved road right to the top, although you'll have to hike in about 1km ( 1/2 mile) to reach the crater. The volcano stands 2,640m (8,659 ft.) tall and is located within a national park, which preserves not only the volcano but also dense stands of virgin forest. Poás's crater, said to be the second largest in the world, is more than a mile across. Geysers in the crater sometimes spew steam and muddy water 180m (590 ft.) into the air, making this the largest geyser in the world. There's an information center where you can see a slide show about the volcano, and there are well-groomed and marked hiking trails through the cloud forest that rings the crater. About 15 minutes from the parking area, along a forest trail, is an overlook onto beautiful Botos Lake, which has formed in one of the volcano's extinct craters.

Be prepared when you come to Poás: This volcano is often enveloped in dense clouds. If you want to see the crater, it's best to come early and during the dry season. Moreover, it can get cool up here, especially when the sun isn't shining, so dress appropriately. Admission to the national park is $10 (£5).

In case you don't want to go on a tour, there's a daily bus (tel. 2442-6900 or 2222-5325) from Avenida 2 between calles 12 and 14 that leaves at 8am and returns at 2pm. The fare is $5 (£2.50) round-trip. The bus is often crowded, so arrive early. If you're driving, head for Alajuela and continue on the main road through town and follow signs for Fraijanes. Just beyond Fraijanes you will connect with the road between San Pedro de Poás and Poasito; turn right toward Poasito and continue to the rim of the volcano.