Custom Trip Planning

Often, this is not as expensive as a typical one-size-fits-all inclusive Costa Rica vacation package, yet you will retain more independence to experience the Costa Rica tour of your choice. You get to take advantage of our experience and expertise while still expressing your own preferences, budget, and schedule for your Costa Rica trip.

Below under “Trip Planning Process” you will find a guide to the information on this website plus a step-by-step guide to working with Costa Rica Connection to plan your own customized Costa Rica vacation package (this is a really long page, but it may help you with your planning).

Questions? Please call tollfree 1-800-345-7422.

Why Custom Trip Planning Makes Sense

We enjoy working with you to create a Costa Rica tour that perfectly matches your interests and travel dates. You choose your standard of accommodations, travel dates and amount of time spent at each site along the way. This way you do what you want and not just purchase a Costa Rica vacation package tour put together by someone else

Then we apply our knowledge of Costa Rica tourism to make your budget stretch the furthest, smooth out your connections, and make sure you are working with the best service providers within whatever budget you specify.

Our custom arrangements are often less expensive than other companies’ large group departures. You will find incomparable value in the personal service we provide, the knowledge and experience we apply to designing your trip, and the flexibility you will enjoy in the final itinerary that will be carefully tailored to your own interests.

Costa Rica Connection designs your Costa Rica vacation itinerary by combining destinations and activities. If you wish, we can book all of your accommodations, guide services, tours and travel from one destination to another. With all of your travel needs in place, you can truly relax and enjoy a true taste of the beautiful, tropical wonders of Costa Rica!

Once you have an idea about the areas and activities that interest you, our Costa Rica trip itinerary planning experts would like to talk to you directly to work out the specific details of your customized itinerary. Please call our office on our toll free number 1-800 345 7422 and discuss your plans with us. We can then start helping you put together the trip of a lifetime.

Use Our Website To Begin Planning

We continuously update our website to provide you in-depth and detailed information about Costa Rica tourism and travel options. The next few small paragraphs introduce you to the kind of information you will find on various pages of our site.

Our Typical itineraries list a number of sample itineraries that are popular with many of our first time travelers to Costa Rica. We can easily modify these programs by substituting hotels or choosing alternate guide and transportation services.

Favorite destinations highlights and provides more indepth information of our favorite places to visit in the country. You can learn a lot about the various regions on these pages.

Often, if you are just starting your research, you may not want to narrow your choices to specific destinations. In Regions and Habitats we review more general information on vacation themes that are appealing to visitors: Rainforests, Mountains and Volcanoes, Beaches and Wildlife Viewing.

Our Guides and Transportation Services review the different options available to you to get around the country and the different guiding options. We have included bio-briefs on some of the guides, driver/guides and drivers we use in-country. We often find that prospective clients do not compare apples with apples. Two trip quotes will vary significantly if one is based on getting you around the country with overland shuttle transfers and the other is based on services provided by your own personal driver/guide. This section is meant to give you information about the different types of services available so you can choose which suits your travel style and what you expect to get out of your Costa Rica Vacation.

Our Hotels section provides a brief description of our favorite hotels in each of the 7 regions in the country.

The Custom Trip Planning Process

1. Let us know what you want

The more information you can give us about your Costa Rica vacation interests and preferences the better. Let us know which areas of Costa Rica you would like to visit. Decide how you wish to travel within the country. Inform us of any specific hotel(s) you would like to stay in, the types of accommodations you like, the level of activity you prefer, and any other details.

How long can you stay? Your airline tickets are one of the most expensive elements of your vacation. It makes sense to try and stay as long as you can. Have you already purchased your tickets? If so, let us know what time you arrive and depart as this may determine if you need to spend your first and last nights in or around San Jose.
Do you want to travel alone or as part of a guided small group? The advantages of traveling alone are that you can set your own pace and have the most flexibility. However you may miss out on learning about the culture, ecology and country’s natural history that you would learn from a guide. You might also miss out on seeing wildlife. The guides know where many creatures are likely to be found. Good guides are expensive, so you may prefer to defray the costs of a guide over a small group, to get the best of both worlds. Our small group Costa Rica nature tours offer good value because guide and transportation costs are defrayed over more people.

If this is going to be a Costa Rica Family Vacation how many adults and how many children will be traveling? What are the ages of the children? How many rooms do you require? Are your children willing to share a bed? Do you want to travel just with your own family(ies), or join other families on a tour?

How much are you prepared to spend? Vacations with Costa Rica Connection typically cost between $125 and $ 250 per person per day depending on the type of accommodations, guide and transportation services.

What kind of experience do you want and what kind of trip appeals to you. Do you have any special interests we can incorporate into your trip (such as birding, mountain biking on back roads, rafting, canopy tours, diving,etc,)? How important is learning about ecology and natural history? About Costa Rican Culture? What do you want to get out of your vacation? Are you looking for a beach vacation, an adventure vacation with physically challenging activities, a more nature-oriented vacation or a combination?

2. We then develop a Proposed Itinerary

Based on the initial information you give us we will prepare a proposed trip itinerary together with an approximate cost for your review. We will be happy to provide you with several travel options to assure you have an itinerary that is to your satisfaction.

3. Review and Revise

At this stage we need your firm travel dates. Should you accept the itinerary presented and decide to have us go ahead and confirm your reservations, we will finalize the intinerary complete with all estimated costs. We will then ask you for an intial deposit.

If you want to finetune or modify the itinerary, we will do that at this step. In either case, we then move on to the finalized itinerary (there is always some room to make adjustments, of course).

4. Intial Deposit and Trip Confirmation

Once we have an itinerary you like, your initial deposit will allow us to confirm all the services specified in your itinerary. We will ask you to submit a $350 per person deposit by check or credit card charge authorization, along with a completed Passenger Information Form. This charge is applicable as credit to your final trip cost. The transaction can be done by phone although it is preferable to send it in writing by email or fax. At this point we will contact our ground tour operator and have them book and confirm your trip. This may take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours depending on the complexity of your trip and the time of the year you are traveling.

5. Confirmed Reservations

Once we receive written confirmation from the service providers in Costa Rica, you will receive by mail, email, or fax a Confirmed Trip Quote with a day-by-day trip itinerary, including accommodations, daily activities, the specific meals and entrance fees included, and a firm price quote with a statement of what is and what is not included in the trip.

Refunds. In the event we are unable to confirm the originally proposed itinerary you have the option of declining the proposed itinerary and the full $350 deposit will be refunded. However, this rarely happens, as we normally are able to confirm alternate comparable properties. If we are able to confirm the proposed itinerary the $350 deposit becomes binding and non-refundable. Depending on your dates of travel a further deposit may be required plus any additional deposits to hold specific accommodations.

Should you choose to cancel your trip for any reason, cancellation fees apply as outlined in our Terms and Conditions. We offer cancellation insurance that covers various contingencies.

6. We start preparing you for your trip – Pre-departure Packet

After we receive confirmations your initial deposit will be charged and you will be sent a pre-departure packet for your trip. This will include the following items which pertain to your trip:
Booking/Invoice Receipt detailing what has been confirmed, total with balance due and payment schedule
Travel Insured International Trip insurance application
Pre-departure Booklet which includes equipment and packing checklist, health and immunization information
Hotel brochures when available
Equipment or packing checklist

7. Final Payment – Final Trip Documents

Sixty days prior to departure we require payment in full as detailed in the booking invoice. At this point we reconfirm with Costa Rica Sun Tours that all of the services are confirmed and go over any specific details or requests regarding your customized Costa Rica trip itinerary. We make any necessary prepayments to hotels in order to guarantee reservations. It is very important that you consider purchasing Trip Cancellation Insurance as non-refundable deposits are made to hotels and/or to our ground tour operator for guaranteeing the hotel, tour and guide services we have contracted.

Approximately 3 weeks prior to departure we send you a final set of documents that includes a day-to-day itinerary, hotel and our ground tour operators contact information, luggage tags plus any last minute information.

8. Before you leave – pre-departure consultation

Call us toll-free at 1-800 345 7422 any time regarding your trip and preparation for your departure.

9. Bon Voyage! We wish you the best vacation ever.

Costa Rica Connection and Costa Rica Sun Tours stand behind our custom tours. You can always reach us in Costa Rica through Costa Rica Sun Tours at:
Tel: 011-506-296-7757
Fax: 011-506- 296-4307
Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Saturday 7:30 a.m. through 12:30 p.m.
For emergencies within Costa Rica, you may call: 011-506-382-8335 or pager 225-4049