MEDICAL AND HEALTH

Costa Rica is generally considered a safe travel destination. The areas we visit including western Panama, and Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River, require few if any medical precautions. Immunizations and other prophylaxis are a matter of personal choice. Since recommendations change from time to time,  for complete information you should consult your physician, visit the CDC web site, or call the CDC at 1-888-232-3228 before you visit. For a local health perspective you may want to visit the Green Arrow Guide.

COSTA RICA INFORMATION

The currency for Costa Rica is the colon. Dollars are accepted in many places. Important Notice: The currency exchange window at the Juan Santamaria airport is known not to be giving a favorable exchange rate for your money, please avoid this money exchanger.
You can make an ATM withdrawal in colones at the airport or wait until you are away from the airport and go to a bank or a different money exchanger.
Alternatively, most hotels will exchange money for you but sometimes at a less advantageous exchange rate. The exchange rate is now more than 500 colones per dollar. To find current Costa Rica exchange rates click the currency converter.  The official currency for Panama is the Balboa but since one Balboa is equal to one dollar, only dollars are used.

Credit Cards can be used in San Jose and in some tourist areas and will usually give a good exchange rate.  Most shops are closed in the evening and on Sunday. Some will give you a discount if you pay with cash. Visa and Mastercard are the most accepted credit cards.  Some places also accept American Express, but Discover is not widely accepted.  ATM terminals are common in San Jose and in larger cities and some tourist areas.  Plus is the most widely available service for ATM withdrawals although some machines now accept Cirrus and other systems.  Traveler's checks can be cashed at banks and larger hotels, but sometimes there is a charge.  Cashing travelers checks at banks can be both time consuming and frustrating since banks have limited hours and usually require waiting in a long line.

Finding a good Costa Rica airfare can be challenging.  From the New York area advance purchase fares for around $500.00 round trip are frequently available through consolidators or discount travel agencies. Ole is a reliable consolidator located in California. Frequently, you can locate discount agencies through the Sunday travel section of large urban newspapers.  Among the sites that are sometimes helpful are Orbitz, and Fly Costa Rica. For flights within Costa Rica and to neighboring countries we recommend Nature Air.

We recommend that you purchase trip cancellation insurance. Consumer Reports recently recommended that those interested in travel insurance check out the site insuremytrip.com that offers various forms of travel insurance from a number of different companies.

Useful Costa Rica information is available from many online sources. For current information about events in the country you may want to browse the online version of the English language Tico Times or the English language version of La Nacion.  Another new source of Costa Rica information is the English on-line newspaper called, AMCostaRica To find web links to useful sites with information about many aspects of Costa Rica, visit the Costa Rica Handbook, or Tico Search.

Several sites you may want to visit are more specialized.
Click here for the San Jose weather and weather forecast.
Click here to hear Costa Rica bird and wildlife sounds.
Click here for all types of canoeing and kayaking information from Boat Owner's World.
In addition, two excellent sources for paddling gear are the Jersey Paddler, located in Brick, New Jersey and Piragis Northwoods, located in Ely, Minnesota.
Worldwide Paddling Adventures also runs great international paddling trips to such exotic locations as Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Iceland, India, and Vietnam!
And, of course, we hope you will find much useful information as you explore our site!
If you are interested in reading more about Costa Rica, click here for our Suggested Reading List. If you need other information drop us an email.