Birding by Car in Costa Rica

By Car and Shuttle

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Road Map of Costa Rica

Road Map of Provinces

Physical Map

Costa Rica Travel Map

X-Ray Map

Map with Distances

This website is partially a personal narrative of trips to Costa Rica over about a 15-year time frame. Nearly all of the information here is from personal experience. The website's purpose is to help birders with a driving itinerary and to aid the traveler in understanding both the regional avifauna and the distances between birding localities. It may be helpful to those using public transportation, but I have not used public buses to travel inside Costa Rica. Outside of two trips that I did with group tours, all other trips were done using a rental car and an occasional shuttle.

There are several advantages to driving in Costa Rica, and my wife and I now drive the country nearly every summer. There are, however, times when a shuttle service is a far better way to go. This website deals directly with the regional bird life, the nuances of getting around with a rental car and shuttle service, and understanding the distances between locations so that you can best determine an overall itinerary.

Besides San Jose, it is now possible to fly non-stop into Liberia, Costa Rica, (in NW Costa Rica, Guanacaste region) from many U.S. cities. At present, Miami, Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston have non-stop commercial flights to the Liberia International Airport.