Manuel Antonio National Park & Quepos Travel Guide
Sweeping beaches and a world-class National Park
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Driving south along Costa Rica’s mid-Pacific coastline offers beautiful scenes of forests, beaches and seas as you pass through natural reserves, agricultural land and small towns. Bouncing over rickety bridges, the road eventually leads to Quepos, a small town filled with businesses and amenities based around the nearby plantations and fishing. Quepos also has a lot of hotels, as it is the gateway to Manuel Antonio National Park, one of the most beautiful and most visited natural areas in Costa Rica.
Once one of the main Costa Rican ports, Quepos’ seafaring importance has declined in recent years and though the town still maintains an important relationship with local banana production the proximity of Manuel Antonio National Park, just 7 km away has paved the way for tourism. The city is home to a wide variety of accommodation and restaurants and its wharf serves as a departure point for sport-fishing and recreational boat trips.
A wet and rainy climate allows for greater biodiversity in the beaches and hills next to the coast and this creates a transition from tropical wet forest to tropical forest to tropical dry forest within a relatively small area. These ecosystems provide habitat for numerous plant and animal species that are protected in several wilderness areas, of which Manuel Antonio is the most famous. Here, sweeping golden sands meet lush green forests and offer truly stunning tropical beach scenes.
Attractions in Manuel Antonio National Park & Quepos
The most important nearby attraction is Manuel Antonio National Park, but there is also the possibility to explore the local beaches, other reserves and head out to sea from Quepos on a fishing or boat excursion.
Activities in Manuel Antonio National Park & Quepos
Well developed for tourism, the Quepos–Manual Antonio area is very attractive to tourists, offering mountains and high places as well as quadricycle or all-terrain-vehicle tours.
Visitors can walk over suspension bridges, tour mangrove swamps by boat, visit butterfly gardens, go horseback riding, dolphin- or bird-watch, go sport-fishing or enjoy an ultralight flight.
Relaxing
Time the tides right and stroll over to the quieter third beach into Manuel Antonio National Park, and relax in the sunshine listening to the surf crash onto the sands below you.
Getting Around
There are regular buses between Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park, as well as a plentiful supply of taxis.
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