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. ❤️️

Meet the all-new Moon Costa Rica!

Our Costa Rica guidebook published by Moon Travel Guides is here.

If you’ve ever stood in the travel section of your local bookstore and scanned the shelves for the perfect guidebook, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with the name Moon. If you’re a travel newbie, you’ll quickly learn that Moon (formally, Moon Travel Guides) is one of the most recognizable and respectable guidebook brands. It produces detailed travel guides to countries and notable regions around the world, each written by authors with tight ties to the spotlight destination and heaps of firsthand experience.

Moon Costa Rica’s new author

Nikki Solano

I couldn’t feel more proud to be the new author of Moon Costa Rica, Costa Rica’s contribution to Moon‘s global guidebook empire. When I stepped into the role, I had some big shoes to fill. Moon Costa Rica‘s previous author, Christopher P. Baker, built the book in the 1990s and carried it through to 2015 with updated publications every few years. Moon‘s reputation for producing high-quality, trustworthy, and beloved resources added pressure to deliver a fantastic travel guide. So did my own desire to always provide Costa Rica travelers with unique content and sound advice. Throw in the fact that work on the book fuses two of my greatest loves—Costa Rica and writing—and you can understand why dedicating nearly all of my time and energy for more than a year to the development of an all-new Moon Costa Rica was the right and necessary choice.

“Why Moon Costa Rica? First of all, it’s well-written and the book’s layout is very accessible. The depth and clarity of the descriptions of regions, activities, transportation options, accommodations, and many other “must knows” are an important strong point. In reading Moon Costa Rica, I have a sense of the honesty and integrity of the author, Nikki Solano, and her partner, Ricky. Their thirteen years of lived-experience, extensive travels throughout Costa Rica, and local tourism connections are reflected in the guide which, perhaps most importantly, inspires trust in their recommendations.”

T.A., Purchased Moon Costa Rica (2019) in January 2020 at Chapters / Indigo
(read the full, unbiased review here)

About the first edition of Moon Costa Rica (2019)

The text below was written in November 2019, upon publication of the first edition of Moon Costa Rica

Built from scratch, the new first edition of Moon Costa Rica (2019) is a full-color, 568-page guide (available as a paperback book or an e-book) that’s full of tips, recommendations, photos, and maps. If you’ve read Moon Costa Rica before, something different you’ll notice about the 2019 edition is that it delves into experiences. The editor and I worked very hard to make this book a practical guide to sensing Costa Rica—listening to the wild soundtracks of varied ecosystems, seeing wildlife, tasting flavorful cuisine, smelling bold aromas like freshly ground Costa Rican coffee, and feeling the pura vida vibe. We aimed to not just tell you what you can do in Costa Rica but to walk you through the process of doing it. You’ll learn where the best activities take place, what they feel like and require of you, what you need to know before signing up for particular tours, which companies are the best to book through, and, perhaps most important, why particular experiences are worthy of your time and money.

The book contains plenty of additional information, too, like which accommodations are the best to stay at and why they’re deserving of recognition; which transportation services are the most time- and cost-efficient; where you should go to indulge in Costa Rican food and drinks; which beaches offer something special; how you can take part in local celebrations; and which sights are the country’s best. Itinerary and strategic trip-planning suggestions tailored for different types of travelers (e.g., backpackers, couples/honeymooners, families with children, nature lovers, adventurists, and beach bums) are also provided. Having spent more than a decade corresponding with Costa Rica travelers, the itineraries and travel strategies I developed for Moon Costa Rica are a combination of my professional expertise and lessons learned/shared by past travelers.

Perhaps more than anything else, Moon Costa Rica is a combined labor of love and gift of love. I’m confident it will become the preferred guidebook on the market given the intricate detail, practical information, and helpful advice I poured into it so Costa Rica travelers like you are able to get loads out of it. Ricky, a born-and-raised Costa Rican, jammed tons of Tico (Costa Rican) heart and soul into this book too, which is equally important and celebratory. He helped the new Moon Costa Rica achieve a level of authenticity that other Costa Rica guidebooks struggle to reach because they’re written solely by ex-pats.

Buy the first edition of Moon Costa Rica (2019) on Amazon

About the second edition of Moon Costa Rica (2021)

The text below was written in November 2021, upon publication of the second edition of Moon Costa Rica

The second edition of Moon Costa Rica was both a privilege and a challenge to write. On one hand, I was thrilled when Moon asked me to return to the series and write the next edition of the guide. On the other hand, when I signed on to the project, most of the world was under lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and travel was at a standstill. To speak honestly, at the time, the very act of writing a guidebook (or working on any travel-related project) felt trivial. What propelled me to continue writing and promoting (future) travel, though—or who propelled me, I should say—were the Costa Rican people. So many Ticos (Costa Ricans) rely on the tourism industry to survive, and it was obvious that the nation’s lack of international visitors was causing them major hardship. I thought, while I can’t end the pandemic, I can continue promoting Costa Rican businesses and services with the hope that when normalcy—and international flights—return, so will foreigners with money to spend in Costa Rica.

So, on I wrote, and at the end of 2021, the Moon team and I published the second edition of Moon Costa Rica. Although it was tough to conduct research during the pandemic-plagued year (it seemed like each new day delivered a temporary or permanent business closure), we managed to produce an accurate guide that builds on the fantastic foundation of the first edition of Moon Costa Rica with new photographs, updated maps, and more tailored recommendations.

Buy the second edition of Moon Costa Rica (2021) on Amazon

About the third edition of Moon Costa Rica (2023)

The text below was written in September 2023, upon publication of the third edition of Moon Costa Rica

The third edition of Moon Costa Rica is our favorite edition.

The first edition was just that—a first edition. We poured our hearts and nearly a year’s worth of work into that guide, but simultaneously, we were discovering how to produce a full-length guidebook and what makes one great. When it came time to work on a second edition, the pandemic reared its ugly head and travel came to a standstill. Although we managed to update the entire guide, the post-Covid era brought several changes. The third edition is the product of everything the first edition taught us about guidebook publishing and everything the second edition taught us about travel, especially how lucky so many of us are to have resumed accessing that privilege. ❤️ We sincerely hope you love it as much as we do.

Buy the third edition of Moon Costa Rica (2023) on Amazon

What it’s like to write a travel guidebook

Are you curious about the process of writing a travel guidebook? If so, don’t miss our related blog post Writing A Travel Guidebook: What To Expect, which details my awesome experience writing the new first edition of Moon Costa Rica and working with Moon Travel Guides (i.e., Avalon Travel and Hachette Book Group) in general.

Pura vida!

QUESTION TO COMMENT ON: Is there something specific that you’d like to see represented in Moon Costa Rica?

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