My husband and I started a tradition where, no matter what is going on in our lives, we always go away for valentines day and our wedding anniversary. So, this year we spent a long weekend in La Fortuna (a pick from John’s bucket list!) for Valentine weekend and let me tell you…best valentine trip ever! I’ve always heard that Costa Rica was a special place but I didn’t realize just how special it was until we went! The energy there is so incredibly healing. Here is our itinerary so you can experience it for yourself!
Day 1:
Arrive at San Jose International Airport. The customs line took very long so factor this in when planning your flight times. We then took a private transfer to La Fortuna. I highly recommend the company we booked with (full transparency if you book through this link, I will get a commission but I only post recommendations that we really loved and recommend!). It is about a 3 hour drive to La Fortuna but it was a great way to see a lot of Costa Rica! The ride was really scenic (we even saw a sloth climbing the power line!) and the driver told us a lot about the country! We even stopped for the most delicious local empanadas (I am now obsessed with gallo pinto).
Then, check in to Amor Arenal Hotel. This is a romantic, five star rainforest lodge where every guest stays in a standalone luxury “casita” that has its own sundeck and private plunge pool with views of the volcano. There are only 31 of these so you don’t see too many other people during your stay.
The food here was delicious. Breakfast is included with your stay and it was great every morning. I hate coffee but the coffee in Costa Rica was so delicious that I looked forward to it every morning and brought a ton home. This hotel has a couple restaurants to choose from and some have cool foodie experiences like a chefs tasting experience and cooking your own meat on a big grill Costa Rican style. I don’t eat meat and I was really impressed that they had a full vegetarian menu with good options!
The resort pool area has multiple spring water pools that are set at different temperatures. We loved the heated pool with the swim up bar!
If you wake up early enough or stay out late enough, you have the opportunity to see really cool wildlife like monkeys, sloths, toucans, red eyed frogs and more! The staff was really great about pointing out their usual hang outs and shining a flashlight on some cool animals at night.
We got to the hotel late so we just got settled in and went to dinner.
Day 2:
We had breakfast at the hotel and took this day to relax and enjoy our private plunge pool. They stock your room with your first round of drinks (for free) which included local beers, house made sangria which was so delicious and soda. We had a good playlist going and just enjoyed time together! We ordered room service for lunch.
For dinner, we went out to downtown La Fortuna. It was very easy to get a cab – you could either have the front desk set one up for you or you could call an Uber. Once we went out a few times, our drivers gave us their personal numbers so we were able to set up rides directly which was nice. The rides really weren’t expensive and the downtown was close. It was very safe and had a lot of great local restaurant choices that were much cheaper than the hotel. We had fun walking around but the cab drivers told us to make sure we never walked off the sidewalk because of snakes! We ate at Volcano Steakhouse and we liked it!
Day 3:
I woke up early to walk around the resort and look for animals and then I headed to a yoga class. Costa Rica is one of the 7 energy vortexes in the world so its an amazing place to practice meditation and yoga. The hotel had a gorgeous meditation pavillion, great yoga classes and each room came with yoga mats. I got lucky because I was the only one who showed up to yoga so I got a private session! I loved meditating here every morning.
We headed out after breakfast to go to La Fortuna Waterfall. You can buy tickets when you get there. It was BREATHTAKING. It is a hike of 530 steps to reach the waterfall which was very easy going down but VERY tough going up (for me not for John lol). Thankfully, they have places to stop along the way to take a breath. There is also some nice spots carved out to take photos of the waterfall. The water was rough and they advise if you aren’t a great swimmer, not to swim in it. I am not a good swimmer at all and the water was too tough for me but John had a great time swimming around. They also had a really good restaurant at the top that we stopped at for lunch before heading back to the hotel.
We spent the rest of the day hopping between our plunge pool and the pools on property. Then, we got ready and went downtown for dinner. This night we tried the most talked about restaurant in La Fortuna. It had a line every night! It was called Pollo Fortuneno and the food was really good, the drinks were fun and it had really vibey flowery decor. This was Superbowl night, which we both don’t care about, but it was played at pretty much every restaurant if you are into that!
Day 4:
We woke up super early to check out the Arenal Hanging Bridges. Make sure you buy your tickets in advance and definitely try to get the first time slot of the day for a better chance at seeing wildlife and having the place to yourself. This was a really cool excursion and the one that I was most excited about. You get to hike through a real rainforest, walk across hanging bridges and see tons of wildlife. It was beautiful! The hike wasn’t challenging either.
We then headed back to the hotel to have breakfast before heading out to the Ecotermales hot springs. It was a really nice place to relax however, we wish we went at night because the hot springs in the hot sun was a little much. We also didn’t love that it was open to kids. No offense to people with kids or the kids in our lives that we love, but when we are on vacation we don’t want kids anywhere near us so that was a little bit of a vibe ruiner. But overall we had fun relaxing here! We had lunch here and it was good too.
We spent the rest of the day at our resort main pool area hanging out at the swim up bar. The staff was so friendly that we made friends with the bartenders and they were a lot of fun.
Speaking of the staff, they also drive you around on golf cart upon request!
It’s not a trip for us unless we try a local Italian restaurant so we went downtown for dinner to a place called Anch’io, which was actually very good.
Day 5:
We checked out after breakfast and started making the journey back to the airport. We really appreciated that the driver took a different route back so we could see more scenery. It was gorgeous and reminded me a lot of Ireland with all the greenery! We stopped at a local waterfall and also at a monkey sanctuary! Our airport experience was better going home – security was quick and it had a lot of dining options as we waited for our flight.
This trip was a 10/10 and we can’t wait to come back and do the beach side! I’m already missing falling asleep to the sounds of the rainforest every night.
