There are basically 3 types of transport in Costa Rica: Public transport such as buses & ferries, tourist shuttles and rental cars.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
By far the cheapest mode of transport and very easy to use. You can see the bus we took from San Jose to Sarapiqui for Selva Verde. There are a couple of websites to help you plan your bus trips which give the timings. The fares of the buses we took were all pretty cheap, around $5-10.
Visit Costa Rica has a complete schedule which is very handy to estimate the time to get from place to place.
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You can also search for specific routes and schedules here.
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In many cases you will have to transit San Jose so you should be aware that there isn’t a central bus station. If you come from the airport in Alajuela, you will get dropped at the Alajuela terminal. Then you have to get a taxi to the Caribe bus station which will cost around $3. Luggage can go under the bus or if it is small, you can carry it on. I always carried on my backpack that had all my camera gear!
TOURIST SHUTTLES
These are more expensive than the public buses as you may expect. They are also a lot more convenient as they will pick you up at your hotel/lodge and drop you off at your accommodation in your destination and they can accommodate your luggage. We used one from Selva Verde to Laguna del Lagarto, then it picked us up again and took us to Arenal. There are several tourist shuttle companies. They cost the same whether you book them online or let the lodge book them so I tended to let the lodge book them so they would get a small commission. Most lodges will have the details on their websites.
If you don’t know where you are staying or want to book online, here are a few companies.
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In this case, we did use this company from Monteverde to Carara. Since Carara isn’t in the list, I had to use the call centre and they just put a random hotel in. I explained to the driver that we wanted to jump out at Villa Lapas which is enroute and was expecting to be left on the road but he took us all the way to the lodge. It’s about $55 per person. If the daily timings don’t suit you, you can book a private shuttle which seems to be around the cost of 4 normal tickets. Not all of the shuttles have Wifi but the one from Limonal to Jaco did so it helped pass the time.
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RENTAL CARS
This is what I really agonized over before deciding to go with shuttles & public buses. I did a lot of research online and found threads like this one on Trip Advisor with lots of horror stories.
- Corrupt police wanting bribes
- Scams with rental companies falsely accusing you of damaging the car
- Bad roads that do damage the car
- Accidents
- Overcharging insurance/high deductables
- Criminals causing a flat tire, then they rob you while you are changing it
- Break-ins at tourist attractions, hotels & restaurants
I just wasn’t up to it and when I did the math if we used mostly public buses with shuttles to places the buses don’t go it was roughly the same cost and less stressful. I’ll let these guys explain it.