Get Lost Hiking in Costa Rica: A starting point
Awhile back we reviewed the merits of hiking as an activity: accessible, free or inexpensive, and endless with possibilities. And that is where we left it.
This week I want to slow down a little, and add some metal to our fitness armor, with more insight on the subject. We will review some basic rules of the off-road, and then streamline your search for the less-travelled, via some online tools I have summarized for you at the end.
The basics with hiking start with planning, which should be relative to the distance you will travel to your hike and the distance your hike will be. Farther away, more planning, longer distance, more supplies.
The easiest hike is the one out your front door, and only requires at most, a bottle of water. Normally people call this “walking.” For the more adventurous, and if you are still reading I assume we are talking about you, the nature walk or hill hike are where the real butterflies go.
With longer trips you will want to plan your footwear a bit. I am the barefoot sort, wearing the minimum amount of coverage needed to protect the bottom of my feet, but others prefer to feel more protected.
My suggestion with footwear are to consider two factors: where will you be hiking, and to what are you accustomed?
Likely you will hike through water in Costa Rica, so plan to be amphibious, but you may be hiking where there are snakes, so ankle protection may also be needed, to set your mind at ease. With ankle support, there are two schools: a lot and lot less.
“A lot less” is for The Purest. Period.
“A lot” provides protection as mentioned and support for your joints if you need it. With the latter, the more matured your physical body is, the less I changes I would make, as far as to what you are accustomed. In other words, don’t decide at age 74 you want to stop wearing hiking boots in favor of a barefoot hiking experience.
Regarding Water: I have learned the hard way to bring more than needed. Getting lost or stuck because you took a wrong turn is normal and manageable with patience. Running out of water can make the stress of this more… stressful.
I carry my water in a water bottle for short hikes, preferably holstered at my hips, so my hands are free for balance. For longer hikes I use a bladder loaded into a backpack. Fill it half full the night before and put it in the freezer to keep your supply cooler throughout the your hike.
Some things that are pretty well-known but deserve mention: wear repellent or cover your parts, hike with a buddy, never hike back via an unplanned route, and tell others of your plans before you leave. A quick blast on Facebook can be very helpful should you and your buddy get lost. “Going hiking Rincón with John – back before noon!”
Let’s recap the basics: Shod with consideration, Take ample water, wear insect repellent, hike with a buddy, stick to your planned route and tell people about it.
So where to go? Here is a breakdown of some available sites and tools where you can start your searching. The order of sites goes from general to more specific. Skip to the last one if you are looking for the category killer.
Good luck on your hiking and please share with me any stories you have from out there hiking in paradise. I love hearing about what you do.
Alright, to start, these three sites are traveller frequented sites which invariably come up in most online searches for anything in Costa Rica. All three offer slightly different products than the others, but with hiking, generally they all fall short of my needs. That said, for the novice, these sites might offer the comfort user interfaces to which they are accustomed, and hikes they can reasonably take.
Hiking Advice From Trip Advisor?
Let me start by saying I love Trip Advisor and use it almost daily. It is so full of information one could easily get lost if it weren’t so well-organized. That said, Trip Advisor is better suited for finding the place you will fuel up or sleep before or after your adventure.
There is a forum with spotted details about hikes and you can follow through the menus to find a collection of “outdoor activities,” but you will be hard pressed to find rugged hiking experiences… or hiking at all. That said, if you are looking for the zip-line with the best monkey views for after your hike then you will use Trip Advisor.
Best Hikes On Frommer’s:
There is currently a link for “The Best Hikes,” which is about half-dozen descriptions of Frommer’s top picks. Similar to Trip Advisor, Frommers is trying to do a lot of things for a lot of people so no serious hiker is going to use this site alone for finding trailheads. It could, however, be a good place to start a search.
The descriptions are poetic and sweeping but they lacks some of the details most hikers will want as far as trailhead, maps, elevation, and more. That said, Frommers does offer some hike length and difficulty information.
Lonely Planet:
Of the first three, Lonely Planet offers the most details of starting points, but this site is not for the experienced adventurer. LP generates 731 hits when searching the words “Costa Rica hiking,” but this is unintentionally deceiving.
The site pulls any hit which contains these words. Most hits I found were only a mention of “hiking” buried in the text as an option. It is possible to get more specific information pertaining to trail heads, websites and associated fees when searching in more detailed areas, such as Arenal, where it does offer some actual hike information.
That being said, the information is light on difficulty, elevation, and more generally aimed at organized hiking groups. There is no user feedback or experiences. In short you won’t need that info unless you are trying to discern if your hips can take the kind of beating the hike provides. I would use Lonely Planet as a cross-reference.
Where you should look if you want your experience all tied in a nice bow, tailor-fit and are willing to pay for your adventure.
Anywhere Costa Rica:
This is a great resource for those wishing to take guided adventure. They often will bundle hikes with zip-lines, canopy, gondola rides, biking, and more. The sky is the limit on Anywhere. Hikes have prices, user reviews, pictures, online booking and payment options.
I used this site when friends or family were coming to town and I needed an easy-to-organize, catch-all package of activities that I could set up and forget about.
But, if you really want to get out there and get lost… or not get lost because you have the tools to find your way, these next two sites are where you really want to search. Both offer comprehensive information on everything you need to know to organize a hike or take on many, many other activities.
For the novice hiker these two sites may seem overwhelming at first but with some time spent searching you may still find the info valuable. I found the user interface of both sites to have easy search tools, rich with information, user experiences, detailed maps, elevation data, hike length, hike type, and so much more.
Where the experience divides between these two is in the mobile experience. Both are GPS enabled, and both are worldwide, but one of the two demonstrates a much friendlier mobile user interface than the other.
Everytrail – At first glance this website looks paltry; no descriptions, few maps… once you set up a free login, easy thru Facebook you get 585 trails in Costa Rica alone, Free Iphone & Android apps. The pro version is $3.99 which I chose not download.
The free version of Everytrail generated a few results with less information than I expected after spending time on their site. The few hits I from the search of my area did provide, as was the case with the full user experience on my laptop: Maps, Distance, Good descriptions of trail type (loop or out and back) with login.
Bragging rights: 200,000 what they call “trips” in 80 Countries all over the world.
Activities include amongst many many others: Bird Watching, Fly-fishing, Hang Gliding/Paragliding, and Roller skating.
Wikiloc
524 results in Costa Rica, 1.5 million+ worldwide. Don’t have to set up username and password but you can. Full site has worldwide maps, interactive map, Contains easy (Day-hikes) to Expert (Pack-out). User experiences with replies. Photos. Maps.
Free Iphone & Android apps: This is where Wikiloc separates itself from the competition. Not only is the app free, with no pro version to pay for, the information found in the application is far beyond the information found in Everytrail.
The snapshot of results is very informative, easy to understand, and provides much more when expanded. If you so choose you may completely customize your search by activity, difficulty, distance, time, and even specify only looped results. Wikiloc is the must-have application for hiking in Costa Rica and the world.
Bragging Rights: 1.5 million trails worldwide, 2.4 Million photos.
Activities include, again, amidst a sea of others: Alpine skiing trails, Flying trails, Dog sledding trails, Ballooning trails, Kiteboarding trails, and Mountain unicycling trails.
Written by VIP Member Damon Mitchell who spent over 10 years in the fitness industry before he moved to Costa Rica in search of a better work/life balance. Currently he lives in Playa Tamarindo in Guanacaste, where he and his wife Cristina are owner-operators of Pizza&Co pizza express, located in Plaza Conchal 2.
Daily, Damon runs on the beach or works out at Tamarindo Fitness Center, keeping fit by doing a combination of old-school weight lifting, calisthenics, TRX, stability ball work and just about anything he can do to create new and fun exercises. Most recently he is learning to surf.
You can email Damon here if there is anything specific about staying fit and healthy in Costa Rica you would like him to cover in his next article.
Get Lost Hiking in Costa Rica: A starting point
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Andrew Makarik
to@welovecostarica.comAndrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.
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