When we moved to Costa Rica 12+ years ago, my new job managing a small non-profit brought us to a little beach town in Guanacaste. Life here has been good. Stunning beaches. Abundant nature and wildlife. Beautiful culture. Nice people. Delicious food. An overall slower pace of life. However, there are some things that are lacking in Guanacaste. An embassy. A children’s hospital. Medical specialists. Museums. Decent shopping. As a result, our little family has had to make more than our fair share of San Jose trips over the years.
While there are several options for making this trip, including a domestic flight on a tiny plane (no thanks says my anxiety), public bus (a very bad, very long Greyhound experience in the US scarred me permanently from this option), or a pricey private transfer, we generally opt to drive ourselves. We make the trek about a dozen times a year, and I’ll share a few highlights of our lessons learned after more than a decade of traversing the InterAmericana and Highway 27.
The average drive time from Guanacaste to San Jose is between 4.5 to 6 hours, depending on how many big, slow trucks you get trapped behind, how bad it is raining, or if you are getting stuck in any kind of beachgoer traffic. One time it took 3.5 hours when a friend and I left at 3:00 am. We were travelling at slightly terrifying speeds, but boy, did we make good time.
Once it took 12 hours when we got stopped by gold miners striking in Abangares who blocked the highway periodically for days. That particular trip killed the A/C in my car, which has never been quite the same since. We have cut it agonizingly close on one too many doctors’ appointments, rushing into the office with two kids in tow, usually shoeless and covered in chip crumbs after an annoying, extremely long car drive.
Find a great San Jose Hotel
To avoid the stress of trying to time our drive perfectly, we often travel the day before appointments and spend the night in a hotel. We have stayed in a number of accommodations over the years including rental houses, small Costa Rican run hotels, and large chains. By far, Hotel Parque del Lago is our favorite.
It is a small boutique hotel in La Sabana, which is very conveniently centrally located between Escazu and the Children’s Hospital, where we spend most of our time in San Jose. Generally, things to look for in a good San Jose hotel: secure onsite parking, complimentary breakfast and a decent restaurant in the event you get in too late and can’t be bothered to go get dinner.
Be strategic about stops
We have been making this drive for a while now and the options for stopping have improved drastically over the years. When we first started these journeys, there were only a handful of places to stop, and the one place that we usually ended up in had a bathroom that was consistently gross.
Today there are tons of solid options. You have, the gas station with the good bathrooms, the gas station with the pretty good bathrooms, the place with the okay bathrooms but a pretty good sodita, the butterfly place, the dinosaur place, the parrot place and a handful of chain fast food joints that have popped up along the ride.
Caldera is generally a fun place to stop about halfway through the trip, renowned for its variety of snow cone themed food trucks and street food, as well as a decent waterfront restaurant. My husband, who has done 92% of the driving on these trips over the years, hates to stop anywhere.
I have witnessed him numerous times standing glumly in the parking lot, watching tractor trailers pass by, quietly muttering under his breath that it took him 20 minutes to pass that guy. However, even he is now more inclined to take a break at any of these fine establishments. It just better be quick.
Be prepared, especially if you have kids
We have two elementary-aged kids. While we are no longer worried about pulling over to change diapers or give bottles, we are now regularly traveling with two ravenous and rambunctious boys, which requires the careful preparation of at least two fully packed coolers of food and beverages, premeditated Netflix downloads onto the iPad that must be fully charged, and the perfect selection of pillows and blankets (that are almost guaranteed to lead to a fight about who’s pillow is whose).
We also have a variety of silly made-up family car games that tend to keep everyone occupied for a solid seven minutes. Luckily, they both are pretty decent car sleepers, which allows the adults to catch an occasional podcast or simply enjoy the sweet silence of the ride.
Final random pro tips
- There are at least four tolls between Guanacaste and San Jose. If you travel to San Jose frequently, get a QuickPass. We got it back in 2020, and it was truly wonderful. Tolls accept credit cards now, but before when they only accepted cash, it was always an adrenaline rush to know if we were going to have enough spare car change to make it home. Sadly, our QuickPass expired this year. It threatened to do so for about 8 months on the little screen every time we passed through a toll. One day it finally kept its promise, and I have not been able to figure out how to get a new one since.
- Stay alert: The drive to San Jose can be wild. Buses and trucks driving at insane speeds. So much crazy passing by impatient drivers. Huge potholes. Never ending construction. Accidents. It’s not exactly a drive for the faint of heart. However, if I can manage it, so can most people.
- The cell signal is spotty at best, so if you plan to listen to a podcast, a playlist or an audio book, I suggest downloading in advance.
While the conveniences of the Central Valley are very alluring, as I sit looking out my window at the palm trees in my garden after spending an afternoon at the beach, I would still much rather make the drive to San Jose, as annoying, stressful and tiring as it might be. I was mildly complaining about the drive to a salesman during my most recent SJ trip, and he shrugged sheepishly while gesturing to the loud, congested highway a few feet away and said with a grin, ‘Well at least you are not looking at this every day.’ And he was right.
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Lindsay Losasso
