Costa Rica Vacation Facts You Should Know

Area Codes: There are no area codes in Costa Rica. All local phone numbers are Eight digit numbers.

Business Hours: Banks are usually open Monday through Friday from 9am to 4pm, although many have begun to offer extended hours. Post offices are generally open Monday through Friday from 8am to 5:30pm, and Saturday from 7:30am to noon.

(In small towns, post offices often close on Sat.) Stores are generally open Monday through Saturday from 9am to 6pm (many close for 1 hr. at lunch) but stores in modern malls generally stay open until 8 or 9pm and don’t close for lunch. Most bars are open until 1 or 2am, although some go later.

Currency:  The Costa Rican Dollar is called the colón. 503 colónes equals one USD $1.00

Drinking Laws: Alcoholic beverages are sold every day of the week throughout the year, with the exception of the 2 days before Easter and the 2 days before and after a presidential election. The legal drinking age is 18, although it’s only sporadically enforced.

Liquor—everything from beer to hard spirits—is sold in specific liquor stores, as well as at most supermarkets and even convenience stores.

Electricity: The standard in Costa Rica is the same as in the United States: 110 volts AC (60 cycles). However, three-pronged outlets can be scarce, so it’s helpful to bring along an adapter.

Wherever you go, bring a connection kit of the right power and phone adapters, a spare phone cord, and a spare Ethernet network cable or find out whether your hotel supplies them to guests.

Embassies & Consulates: The following are located in San Jose: United States Embassy, in front of Centro Commercial, on the road to Pavas ( 2519-2000, or 2220-3127 after hours in case of emergency); Canadian Consulate, Oficentro Ejecutivo La Sabana, Edificio 5 ( 2242-4400); and British Embassy, Paseo Colon between calles 38 and 40 ( 2258-2025). There are no Australian or New Zealand embassies in San Jose.

Emergencies: In case of any emergency, dial 911 (which should have an English speaking operator); for an ambulance, call 128; and to report a fire, call 118. If 911 doesn’t work, you can contact the police at 2222-1365 or 2221-5337, and hopefully they can find someone who speaks English.

Gasoline :(Petrol) Gasoline is sold as “regular and super”. Both are unleaded; super is just higher octane. Diesel is available at almost every gas station as well. When going off to remote places, try to leave with a full tank of gas because gas stations can be hard to find. If you need to gas up in a small town, you can sometimes get gasoline from enterprising families who sell it by the liter from their houses. Look for hand-lettered signs that say GASOLINA.

Hospitals: In San Jose try Clínica Bíblica (Avenida 14 btw. calles Central and 1), which offers emergency services to foreign visitors at reasonable prices ( 2522-1000; www.clinicabiblica.com), or the Hospital CIMA ( 2208-1000; www.hospitalsanjose.net), located in Escazu on the Prospero Fernandez Highway, which connects San Jose and the western suburb of Santa Ana and has the most modern facilities in the country.

Insurance: For information on traveler’s insurance, trip cancellation insurance, and medical insurance while traveling please visit www.frommers.com/planning.

Internet Access: Cyber cafes can be found all over Costa Rica, especially in the more popular tourist destinations. Moreover, an ever increasing number of hotels, restaurants, cafes, and retailers around Costa Rica are offering high-speed Wi-Fi access, either free or for a small fee. Throughout the book, I list which hotels provide free, or for a fee, Wi-Fi and high-speed Ethernet access. For help locating cyber cafes and other establishments where you can go for Internet access, please see the destination chapters throughout this book.

Language: Spanish is the official language of Costa Rica. However, in most tourist areas, you’ll be surprised by how well Costa Ricans speak English.

Laundromats: Laundromats be they full-service or self-serve—are not extremely common in Costa Rica. Outside of San Jose, dry cleaners are also often hard to find. Hotel laundry services, which can sometimes be expensive, are far more common. That said, most major tourist destinations have one or more laundromats catering to travelers.

Legal Aid: If you need legal help, your best bet is to first contact your local embassy or consulate. See “Embassies & Consulates,” above, for contact details. Alternatively, you can pick up a copy of the Tico Times, which usually carries advertisements from local English-speaking lawyers.

Mail At press time, it cost 170 colónes  to mail a letter to the United States, and 190 colónes to Europe. You can get stamps at post offices and at some gift shops in large hotels. Given the Costa Rican postal service’s track record, I recommend paying an extra 500 colónes to have anything of any value certified. Better yet, use an international courier service or wait until you get home to post it. DHL, on Paseo Colon between calles 30 and 32 ( 2209-0000; www.dhl.com); EMS Courier, with desks at most post offices nationwide ( 800/900-2000 in Costa Rica; www.correos.go.cr); FedEx, which is based in Heredia but will arrange pickup anywhere in the metropolitan area ( 800/463-3339; www.fedex.com); and United Parcel Service, in Pavas ( 2290-2828; www.ups.com), all operate in Costa Rica.

If you’re sending mail to Costa Rica, it generally takes between 10 and 14 days to reach San Jose, although it can take as much as a month to get to the more remote corners of the country. Plan ahead. Also note that many hotels and eco lodges have mailing addresses in the United States. Always use these addresses when writing from North America or Europe. Never send cash, checks, or valuables through the Costa Rican mail system.

Newspapers & Magazines There are six Spanish-language dailies in Costa Rica and one English-language weekly, the Tico Times. In addition, you can get Time, Newsweek, and several U.S. newspapers at some hotel gift shops and a few of the bookstores in San Jose. If you understand Spanish, La Nación is the paper you’ll want. It’s “Viva” and “Tiempo Libre” sections list what’s going on in the world of music, theater, dance, and more.

Passports:  Passports are required to enter the country.

Police In most cases, dial 911 for the police, and you should be able to get someone who speaks English on the line. Other numbers for the Judicial Police are 2222-1365 and 2221-5337. The numbers for the Traffic Police (Policía de Tránsito) are 800/8726-7486 toll-free nationwide, or 2222-9330.

Smoking While not as high a percentage as most Europeans, a large number of Costa Ricans smoke, and public smoking regulations and smoke-free zones have yet to take hold. Restaurants are required by law to have nonsmoking areas, but enforcement is often lax, air-circulation poor, and the separating almost nonexistent. Bars, as a whole, are often very smoke-filled in Costa Rica. Most higher-end hotels have at least some nonsmoking rooms. However, many midrange hotels and most budget options are pretty laissez-faire when it comes to smoking. Whenever possible, the presence of nonsmoking rooms is noted in hotel listing description information.

Taxes There is a national 13% value added tax (often written as i.v.i. in Costa Rica) added to all goods and services. This includes hotel and restaurant bills. Restaurants also add on a 10% service charge, for a total of 23% more on your bill.

There is an airport departure tax of $29. This tax must be purchased prior to check-in. There are desks at the main terminal of all international airports where you can pay this tax. Some local travel agencies and hotels offer to purchase the departure tax in advance, as a convenience for tourists. You must give them authorization, as well as your passport number, and pay a small service fee.

Although you can pay the airport exit tax with a credit card, it is charged as a cash advance. Most credit card companies hit this kind of transaction with a fee and begin charging interest on it immediately. It is best to pay the airport tax in cash, either dollars or colónes.

Time Costa Rica is on Central Standard Time (same as Chicago and St. Louis), 6 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time GMT. Costa Rica does not use daylight saving time, so the time difference is an additional hour April through October.

Tipping: Tipping is not necessary in restaurants, where a 10% service charge is always added to your bill (along with a 13% tax). If service was particularly good, you can leave a little at your own discretion, but it’s not mandatory. Porters and bellhops get around 75￠ per bag. You don’t need to tip a taxi driver unless the service has been superior; a tip is not usually expected.

Toilets These are known as sanitarios, servicios sanitarios, or baños. They are marked damas (women) and hombres or caballeros (men). Public restrooms are hard to come by. You will almost never find a public restroom in a city park or downtown area. There are usually public restrooms at most national-park entrances, and much less frequently inside the national park. In the towns and cities, it gets much trickier. One must count on the generosity of some hotel or restaurant. Same goes for most beaches. However, most restaurants, and, to a lesser degree, hotels, will let you use their facilities, especially if you buy a soft drink or something. Bus and gas stations often have restrooms, but many of these are pretty grim.

Visitor Information: In the United States or Canada, you can get basic information on Costa Rica by contacting the Costa Rican Tourist Board (ICT, or Instituto Costarricense de Turismo; 866/COSTA RICA; www.visitcostarica.com). Travelers from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand will have to rely primarily on this website because the ICT does not have toll-free access in these countries.

In addition to this official site, you’ll be able to find a wealth of Web-based information on Costa Rica with a few clicks of your mouse. In fact you’ll be better off surfing, as the ICT site is rather limited and clunky.

You can pick up a map when you arrive at the ICT’s information desk at the airport, or at their downtown San Jose offices (although the map included with this book is generally better). Other sources in San Jose for detailed maps include Seventh Street Books, Calle 7 between avenidas Central and 1 ( 2256-8251); Librería Lehmann, Avenida Central between calles 1 and 3 ( 2223-1212); and Librería Universal, Avenida Central between calles Central and 1 ( 2222-2222).

Perhaps the best map to have is the waterproof country map of Costa Rica put out by International Travel Maps (www.itmb.com), which can be ordered directly from their website, or any major online bookseller, like Amazon.com.

Water Although the water in San Jose is generally safe to drink, water quality varies outside the city. Because many travelers have tender digestive tracts, I recommend playing it safe and sticking to bottled drinks as much as possible, also avoid ice.