Data for Arenal, Monteverde and both coasts, installed before you fly. Costa Rica is on the Americas plan with Panama and Nicaragua, so the same eSIM carries on to Bocas del Toro or Granada. The volcano has been quiet since 2010; the group chat will not be.
The Costa Rica plan covers Costa Rica only.
The same 10 GB in a package that keeps working past Costa Rica.
16 other countries share the package with Costa Rica. A few of them:
What's included, when it starts, and how to get connected.
Most first trips draw the same loop: land in San José, drive north to the volcano, over the hills to the cloud forest and down to the Pacific. A hire car makes it easy, as long as the timings allow for mountain roads. The line below is an illustration, not a map.
1About three hours from Juan Santamaría airport, which is in Alajuela, not San José. Arenal erupted from 1968 to 2010 and has been quiet since: the glowing-lava photos are old, and La Fortuna had its name before the eruption, not because of it. Hot springs, a 70-metre waterfall and a day trip to Río Celeste, tickets bought online.
2Round Lake Arenal and up to about 1,400 metres, where the average temperature is 18°C and the forest lives inside a cloud. Quaker families from Alabama settled here in 1951; the reserve’s first 328 hectares were bought in 1973 for one colón. The biggest reserve nearby, the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, began with a Swedish school class raising money.
3About four hours down to the Pacific, past the Tárcoles River, where American crocodiles are a common sight. Costa Rica’s most visited national park opens 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., shuts on Tuesdays and sells its tickets online: US$18.08 for a non-resident adult in 2026. No food is allowed on its beaches or trails, a rule the capuchins take personally.
4An hour and a half further south, Marino Ballena National Park protects a sandbar shaped like a whale’s tail, walkable only at low tide. Humpbacks visit from both hemispheres: northern ones from December to April, southern ones from July to November. The gate takes cards only, and the Panama border at Paso Canoas is about two hours on.
How the plan fits this route
One package from the airport to the whale’s tail: Costa Rica is on the Americas plan, so the same allowance works in every town on this loop and carries on if the trip continues into Panama or Nicaragua. Coverage is good in the towns and along the main roads and fades deep in the forest, as it would on any SIM. Download tickets and maps in town.
Guide: offline maps, done properly
The catchphrase is usually traced to a 1956 Mexican comedy of the same name, whose luckless hero, played by the comedian Clavillazo, says it at every turn. Costa Ricans made it their own, and dictionaries have listed it since the mid-1990s as a greeting, a farewell, a thank-you and a verdict on almost anything. The nickname tico comes from the local diminutive: momentico, chiquitico.
Costa Rica and Nicaragua both claim rice and beans as a national dish. In 2003 Costa Rica cooked a 440-kilo gallo pinto that earned a Guinness mention; two weeks later Nicaragua served 545 kilos for its Independence Day. In 2005 Costa Rica answered with about 2,200 kilos, made, pointedly, with red beans, the Nicaraguan way. Here it comes with Lizano sauce and no concessions.
Isla Nublar is fictional, and even the film’s San José is Kauai. Costa Rica was considered and dropped because the shoot would have fallen in the rainy season, and Spielberg admitted that at 26 rather than 45 he might have picked somewhere rugged over a Hawaiian hotel with room service. The real offshore island, Cocos, is 550 km out, 36 to 48 hours by boat, and ruled by hammerheads.
Many bridges narrow to a single lane, so slow down and check for oncoming traffic before you commit. San José limits private cars on weekdays by the last digit of the number plate, hire cars included; the rental desk will tell you your day. And if a tyre goes flat after a stop, drive on to a petrol station: the UK Foreign Office warns of thieves who slash one, then offer to help.
The Pacific side is dry from December to March, and September and October are its wettest months. On the Caribbean coast those same two months are one of the year’s two relatively dry spells, says Costa Rica’s national weather service. So in September and October, swap Manuel Antonio for Cahuita and Puerto Viejo, and keep valuables close there: the UK Foreign Office singles out that coast for theft.
Answers about data, coverage and setup for Costa Rica.
Yes. Panama and Nicaragua are on the Americas plan with Costa Rica, so a trip that crosses at Peñas Blancas into Nicaragua, at Paso Canoas into Panama or at Sixaola on the Caribbean side for Bocas del Toro keeps the same allowance; the phone picks up a partner network after the border. Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are on the list too. Belize is not. The Americas plan
Near the entrances, the towns and the lodges, usually; deep in the forest, often not, on any network. Corcovado is the remote one: visits need a reservation, and the trails to the Sirena station need a registered guide. Manuel Antonio, Río Celeste and Tortuguero sell their tickets online through SINAC, the parks service, so buy them and save the confirmation while you still have signal in town.
Not really, and the eSIM is not the reason. SINPE Móvil moves colones between Costa Rican bank accounts linked to Costa Rican mobile numbers, and signing up needs a colón account at a local bank, which visitors rarely have. Pay by card, or in cash where a soda, the local diner, or a market stall prefers it. The eSIM keeps your own banking app and the map working at the till.
