{"id":2812,"date":"2012-08-10T14:31:48","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T20:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/?p=2812"},"modified":"2012-08-10T14:31:48","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T20:31:48","slug":"free-flight-trip-costa-rica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/?p=2812","title":{"rendered":"FREE FLIGHT trip to COSTA RICA!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a guest post by\u00a0our fellow wanderluster, John.\u00a0John has followed WW for more than a year, and got in on the Citi AAdvantage card deal to stock up on AA miles in early 2011 – miles that took him and his wife to Costa Rica earlier this year.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We decided to fly into Liberia because the flight times from there better matched the times we wanted to stay and go back.\u00a0 It used the same amount of AA points and we could avoid the big city of San Jose.\u00a0 Small airport, very easy to find your way around.\u00a0 I did a bunch of searching to find a good deal on a car rental due to the mandatory TPL insurance they charge.\u00a0 Most companies won\u2019t tell you this amount until you arrive and you\u2019re locked in a price.\u00a0 I worked with Luis Diego at www.4x4rentacar.com<\/a>;\u00a0 I got a 4×4 Daihatsu Bego for $400 even.\u00a0 This was a deal because most places I found for an equivalent car for 8 days were $500-$650+.\u00a0 Everything involving the car went smoothly.\u00a0 I met a guy there who was blindsided and paid $1200 for a 10 day car rental\u2026eek.
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\n\"\"<\/a>We were more than anxious to head straight for the beach. Our GPS (which I downloaded maps for\u00a0previously) took us on the straightest path, although not the fastest.\u00a0 We found ourselves on a dirt road with quaint little houses every 3-4 miles.\u00a0 We found an incredible restaurant on the beach where I had fresh fish for dinner\u2026it was incredible as my expression clearly indicates.\u00a0 We stayed that night right on the beach in Playa Guinoes.\u00a0 The next day we went to Playa Samara.\u00a0 This was an incredible little town with plenty to do.\u00a0 We could\u2019ve stayed here the whole time and been happy.\u00a0 The people were great, the fruit stands were cheap, and the food\u00a0in open-air restaurants\u00a0was fantastic.\u00a0 We only stayed here one night because we wanted to see a lot, but looking back it was one of our favorite places.
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\n\"\"<\/a>We drove all the across the Nicoya peninsula and stayed in a town south of Jaco called Esterilles Oeste.\u00a0 Our hosts at our hotel were very friendly and happy to have us, although\u00a0we had to drive down some crazy alley ways to get there.\u00a0 We spent that day on the beach and in Jaco.\u00a0 We made frequent stops at the local grocery store and made friends with the surf shop and rented gear for a\u00a0fraction of what it would have cost in the states.<\/p>\n

The next day we got up and drove down to Quepos and stayed at the Best Western\u2026the first place we could flush our TP down the toilet!\u00a0 We checked out Manuel Antonio!\u00a0 Anybody who knows CR knows how beautiful this place is.\u00a0 Definitely worth seeing the\u00a0incredible beaches and wildlife.\u00a0 We were only down there for one day and then headed back up to Jaco area where we stayed at a Canadian owned hotel outside the city.\u00a0 This was also a highlight area.\u00a0 We were able to chill in the city, cook food at our hotel, and hang out on the beach.\u00a0\u00a0
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\n\"\"<\/a>After staying two days in Jaco, we drove north west to Monteverde and the Cloud Forest.\u00a0 Long dirt road drive, but totally worth it.\u00a0 We stayed in a little bed & breakfast and checked out the forest and chilled with the locals.\u00a0 Monteverde had a great atmosphere and we loved chilling in this town and had a little relief from the heat.\u00a0 We went on the Selvatura zip lines and had a blast, highly recommend!\u00a0
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\nAfter just one day and night in Monteverde we had to get back to Liberia for an early morning flight the next day.\u00a0 We drove back to Liberia and I decided to give Ash a taste of American standard of living and booked a room at the Hilton.\u00a0 She was in paradise after having slept 7 nights with more than one living thing in bed with her\u2026she was a trooper.\u00a0 We got up early and headed on home.
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\n\"\"<\/a>We had an amazing time and enjoyed ourselves to the fullest.\u00a0 I never did the exact numbers on our expenses, but we stayed 8 nights, 9 days\u00a0in beautiful places and\u00a0did amazing things.\u00a0 We figured we saved about $1600 in airfare costs and with the car rental, hotels, food, and play money,\u00a0there’s no way we spent more than $1500.\u00a0 The great thing is that this won’t be the last free trip we take.<\/p>\n

Thanks, WorldWanderlusting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a guest post by\u00a0our fellow wanderluster, John.\u00a0John has followed WW for more than a year, and got in on the Citi AAdvantage card deal to stock up on AA miles in early 2011 – miles that took him … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[373,595,443],"tags":[706,707,708],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1DhXV-Jm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}