Liberia is an incredible leaping off point for the Guanacase region of Costa Rica (the Pacific side) with plentiful beaches, and serves as an alternate airport location if your flights happen to be cheaper here than into San Jose. As one of the northern-most cities, it is also a leaping off point for Nicaragua, which is how we ended up in this town in the first place! If you are looking for things to do in Liberia, read on!
The Details
Location: Liberia is one of the Northern most cities of Costa Rica, approximately 30 minutes from the Nicaragua border.
How many days: This truly depends what you are looking to do in the region. Some may choose to spend their entire holiday on the Pacific Coast of Guanacaste, so you may be here for a week. If it is a stopover before you visit Nicaragua, then just a day or two will suffice, depending on your time frame. In this amount of time you can visit Rincon De La Vieja National Park and a beach or two.
Parking: Street parking is common but not always advised. We were recommended to pay $5 a night to keep our car in the hostel parking garage.
Accommodation: We stayed at a budget hostel, Hospedaje Dodero, but there are a handful more to choose from.
Things to Do
Rincon De La Vieja National Park
Playas: Playa Coco
This is more of a tourist filled beach but that didn’t take away from its beauty. A town of restaurants and shops is walking distance. Parking was free along the beach and on the town streets outside of restaurants and shops.
Playas: Playa Panama
Watching a sunset from any beach in the Guanacaste area is stunning! This is more of a local beach and we did not run into any other tourists here. Park along the street leading up to the beach.
Poza La Pipa: Free
This is a beautiful waterfall area receiving its turquoise color from Rincon De La Vieja National Park. A stylist at CaNela’s Salon told me about it during a haircut and I was sold (not literally, because it’s free!) It’s more of a known weekend destination for locals. A few locals were here for a swim when I visited around 8:00am on a weekday. Specific parking spaces are not labeled so simply park your car when you arrive at the entrance point according to your GPS (as there is no labeled sign). It serves as a free alternative to Poza Las Coyotes with 1000 colones entrance fee.
Poza Los Coyotes
Another incredible blue water location, this one costing 500 Colones or 2 US Dollars. I didn’t have time to explore but imagine the small $2 entrance fee would be well worth the adventure
Food
We went to a delicious and fun restaurant, El Callejero, with an open garage type of atmosphere. I ordered a falafel sandwich- always a plus to have protein options for vegetarians, but there are plenty more food options.
We hope this post gave you some great ideas of things to do in Liberia. Comment below if you have any questions!
