Visiting The Carara National Park—Photos And Brief (5-Minute Read): Tarcoles, Costa Rica

Written by Nikki Solano

Nikki is the CEO of Pura Vida! eh? Inc. (Costa Rica Discounts), and the author of the guidebooks Moon Costa Rica (2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025 editions) and Moon Best of Costa Rica (2022 edition) from Moon Travel Guides. Together with her Costa Rican husband, Ricky, she operates the Costa Rica Travel Blog, created the online community DIY Costa Rica, built the Costa Rica Destination Tool, oversees the brand-new (summer 2023) Costa Rica Travel Shop, and designed the Costa Rica Trip Planning 101 E-Course. Also, Nikki wrote the Costa Rica cover feature for Wanderlust Magazine's sustainability-focused Travel Green List issue, showcased Costa Rica destinations and experiences on Rick Steves' Monday Night Travel show and podcast/radio show, and served as the Costa Rica Destination Editor for Essentialist, a luxury travel brand. Want to show your appreciation for her free article below? Thank Nikki here. ❤️️

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IMPORTANT: This article is part of our Memorable Costa Rica series.

The revered Latin American female writer Isabel Allende once advised: “Write what should not be forgotten.” Inspired by the quote’s brevity and the subject matter of lasting significance, the articles in our Memorable Costa Rica series are concise and highlight what we feel are the most memorable aspects of featured Costa Rica experiences. If you don’t want to waste time rereading the repeated facts and long-drawn-out paraphrased summaries that some other Costa Rica resources offer, then the personal briefs in our Memorable Costa Rica series are perfect for you. Use them to discover the unique qualities and unforgettable moments that we believe each Costa Rica experience provides, so you can easily decide which experiences are worth incorporating into your trip, and in only five minutes or less. 👍🏽

Estimated reading time for this article: 4 minutes

Carara National Park brief

The Carara National Park is like Neapolitan ice cream: it provides a taste of three unique experiences at once. Go for the wheelchair-accessible Universal Access trail loop that’s easy to stroll, provides bays for resting, and supplies informative placards that detail the local flora so you know what you’re viewing. (Conveniently, bathrooms are situated halfway along the loop.) Or, go for the more rugged but not overly difficult Quebrada Bonita and Las Araceas trails, which showcase denser, less frequented parts of the park where more of the resident wildlife, including arboreal monkeys and terrestrial agoutis, can be seen. If you’re an avid birder, don’t miss the linear Laguna Meandrica trail, which is one of the best places for bird-watching in Costa Rica’s central Pacific region due to the volume and variety of bird species that travel in the area. (The entrance to this trail is a few kilometers up the road from the park’s main entrance off Highway 34, across from the village of Tarcoles. Keep your eyes on the sky when hiking this trail, we often see pairs of scarlet macaws flying overhead.) Although most of the Carara National Park is heavily forested and provides a fair amount of shade, keeping hikers as cool as possible in the humid tropical dry forest and tropical rainforest (the Carara National Park is a unique transition forest where the two ecosystems converge), sections of the Laguna Meandrica trail span wide-open plains, so be prepared for encounters with a scorching hot sun. All of the park’s trails can be explored in a few hours (although you could spend the entire day searching for birds and gazing at giant trees and their impressive root systems), so it’s a great Costa Rica national park to tour if you want nature immersion that’s neither difficult to access nor time-consuming.

Carara National Park photos

Map of the Carara National Park

More information about the Carara National Park

For more information about the Carara National Park, including the attraction’s current operations and visitor information, please see the national park’s website. For information about the Carara National Park entrance fee, don’t miss our related blog post: A List Of 50+ Costa Rica Entrance Fees: How Much It Costs To Enter National Parks, Reserves, And Refuges.

Pura vida!

Do you have questions about the Carara National Park, want help deciding if this national park is worth visiting based on the experiences you’re looking to have, or need help determining how to best incorporate a visit to this national park into your vacation? No problem! When you’re ready, make an appointment here to communicate with me (Nikki) privately and we can discuss these and other topics to get your questions answered fast and your Costa Rica trip poised for success. Pura vida, amigos! 🙂

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