Costa Rica has a way of quietly commandeering everyone’s full attention, no matter their age. It’s not a country you visit so much as one you absorb. And for families traveling with UnTours, that absorption happens at exactly the right pace: unhurried, rooted in one home base, with your UnGuide just a call away when you need directions to the best family-friendly trail or the ice cream shop the locals swear by.
Here’s the thing about Costa Rica that most travel brochures get wrong: the wildlife doesn’t need to be scheduled. It’s just… there. On your morning walk. Outside your window. In the tree next to the café where you’re ordering your second cup of coffee.
This tiny country — smaller than the state of West Virginia — holds nearly 6% of the world’s entire biodiversity. That’s not a typo. Roughly 500,000 species share this place, squeezed into 12 distinct ecosystems, from cloud forests draped in mist to volcanic hot springs and jungle-fringed coastlines where sea turtles have been nesting for millions of years.
So, what should families experience together? We’re sharing a few wonders that tend to produce the most gasps, the most questions from curious kids and the most “I could live here” moments for the grown-ups.
Hanging Bridges & the Rainforest Canopy
Most people see rainforests from the ground. The real magic lives up above.
Suspension bridges strung between ancient trees put families at eye level with the forest canopy — where toucans hop between branches, blue-jean dart frogs blaze neon against green moss and the whole living system hums around you. Around the Arenal Volcano area, hanging bridge trails are gently paced and wide enough for little legs, with no real rush to get anywhere.
Kids who couldn’t care less about “nature walks” will suddenly find themselves narrating everything they spot like tiny wildlife documentarians. That’s the thing about being up in the canopy — you stop being a tourist passing through and start being a witness to something ancient and genuinely extraordinary.
UnGuide Tip: Morning is prime time. Go before 9 am when animals are at their most active and the light filtering through the canopy is something you’ll want to see for yourself.
Sloths (and the Art of Doing Absolutely Nothing)
There is a life lesson somewhere in the sloth. Kids tend to find it faster than adults.
Costa Rica has two sloth species — the three-toed and the two-toed — and both have elevated “chilling in a tree” to a kind of meditative art form. Families staying in the Manuel Antonio or Tortuguero areas have particularly good odds of a sighting, though in truth, sloths turn up just about everywhere once you learn how to look: a dark, furry lump high in a cecropia tree, moving so slowly it’s easy to mistake for a knot in the wood.
Spotting one without a guide can be genuinely tricky. Local knowledge of trails and animal habits is worth its weight in gold here. Guides who know these forests see what visitors walk right past. And once you’ve seen a sloth blink? You’ll understand why half the internet is devoted to them.
UnGuide Tip: Sloths descend to the ground roughly once a week — a rare sighting that sends everyone scrambling for their cameras. If you spot one near the base of a tree, stay quiet and always keep your distance. They’re heading somewhere important.
Arenal Volcano & Hot Springs
Arenal is the kind of volcano that makes adults feel small and makes kids ask very big questions.
Though its last major eruption was in 2010, Arenal remains geologically alive — and the surrounding landscape shows it. Lava fields have grown over with dense jungle, the cone rises dramatically above the trees and the natural hot springs fed by geothermal activity nearby are among the most genuinely relaxing things a human being can do after a week of adventure.
Families spending time in the Arenal area benefit from a destination that layers experiences brilliantly: a morning hike through the national park for wildlife spotting, an afternoon on the hanging bridges, and an evening soaking in warm volcanic spring water while howler monkeys announce the coming dark from somewhere deep in the forest. It’s the kind of day that makes the flight home feel very far away.
UnGuide Tip: The hot springs vary enormously in quality and crowd levels. Your UnGuide will steer you toward the ones that feel like hidden local finds rather than theme parks — there’s a real difference.
Cloud Forests
If the rainforest is alive, the cloud forest is alive and dreaming.
Monteverde’s cloud forest reserve sits between 1,000 and 2,500 meters above sea level, where constant mist nurtures some of the most biodiverse environments on Earth — home to the resplendent quetzal (one of the most visually spectacular birds anywhere), hundreds of orchid species, glass frogs whose translucent bodies reveal their beating hearts and the unmistakable sound of the three-wattled bellbird cutting through the fog.
Cloud forests account for just 1% of the world’s woodland area, but Costa Rica holds a remarkable share of them. Walking through Monteverde with kids is a different kind of magic than a beach or a volcano — it’s quieter, stranger and somehow more intimate. The mist rolls in and out. The trees are draped in moss. Everything drips.
Night hikes here, with guides equipped with specialized lighting, reveal a whole second world of nocturnal frogs, tarantulas (harmless, but thrilling) and insects that look like they were designed by someone with a very ambitious imagination.
UnGuide Tip: The quetzal is crepuscular — most active at dawn and dusk. If seeing one is a priority (and it should be — it’s genuinely breathtaking), plan a very early morning walk with a knowledgeable local guide who knows the nesting areas for the season.
The Olive Ridley Arribada at Ostional
There is no English word for what happens at Ostional Beach. “Arrival” doesn’t quite cover it. Hundreds of thousands of Olive Ridley sea turtles are surging out of the Pacific Ocean simultaneously, covering every inch of volcanic black sand, each one driven by an instinct so ancient it predates human memory. That’s the arribada. And it happens right here in Guanacaste.
Ostional Wildlife Refuge on the Nicoya Peninsula is the second largest Olive Ridley nesting site on the planet. During peak season (August through November), arribadas roll in on a lunar cycle, timed to the darkest nights just before the new moon. At its most dramatic, the beach becomes so dense with turtles there’s barely room to stand between them. The largest ever recorded brought 500,000 females ashore in a single event.
For families, this is the kind of nature experience that doesn’t require any explanation to land. Kids don’t need a nature documentary to understand what they’re watching. The sheer, improbable scale of it does all the work. Turtles labor up the sand, dig their nests with their hind flippers in a motion locals call the “ridley shuffle,” deposit around 100 soft-shelled eggs and then drag themselves back to the sea, all while hundreds more are doing exactly the same thing around them.
Unlike some of Costa Rica’s more remote turtle sites, Ostional is accessible from Guanacaste in about two hours and sits just a few kilometers from Nosara, making it a genuinely manageable family excursion. The community of Ostional has been managing and protecting this beach for decades; part of a remarkable local conservation model that has kept the turtles coming back year after year.
UnGuide Tip: Arribadas run on lunar time. They happen around the last quarter moon and are most intense in the darkest nights. Your UnGuide can help you track the timing and get you there on the right night. Wear dark clothing, leave the flash off and follow your licensed guide’s lead. The rules exist to protect the turtles, and respecting them is what keeps this experience available for everyone.
Costa Rica Protects What Matters Most
Here’s something families often discover after the fact: traveling in Costa Rica tends to feel different from other trips. It’s not just the wildlife or the pace. It’s that the country has made a genuine, remarkable commitment to protecting what it has.
Over 27% of Costa Rica’s land is protected as national parks, reserves and wildlife refuges. The country was the first in the tropics to reverse deforestation entirely — a conservation achievement that scientists and governments around the world still study as a model. When you walk those trails, those animals are there because of real, sustained human effort to keep them there.
Your UnTour to Costa Rica supports local UnGuides, hosts, and businesses embedded in communities that have a real stake in that effort. One hundred percent of UnTours’ profits are reinvested through the UnTours Foundation into global social good initiatives — so your family vacation ripples further than you might expect.
For more tips from our travel experts and UnGuides, get in touch! We would love to help your family start planning an UnTour in Costa Rica.