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. ❤️️

WANT TO SAVE MONEY IN COSTA RICA?

Our sister site, Pura Vida! eh? Inc., has tons of discounts for tours and activities in Costa Rica. Con mucho gusto (you’re welcome) and pura vida!

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Our article below focuses on when you should reserve Costa Rica tours and activities. For our recommended timelines for reserving all other kinds of Costa Rica vacation items, including hotels, transportation services, car rentals, and restaurant visits, please see our related blog post:

Costa Rica Trip Reservations: Booking In Advance, How Much Time Is Needed?

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Reserving Costa Rica tours and activities: Your top priority

When it comes to Costa Rica vacation planning, or more specifically, the topic of Costa Rica tours and activities, are you asking yourself the $64,000 question: Should I book Costa Rica tours and activities ahead of time, or wait until closer to my desired tour dates? If so, welcome to the game. Are you comfy in your contestant’s chair? Let’s play.

Much like the classic television show, The $64,000 Question (and its plethora of remakes), approaching Costa Rica tours and activities is a game of risk, and hopefully, reward. Sometimes risk pays off. More often than not, it doesn’t. If I asked you if you’d be willing to gamble the enjoyment of your Costa Rica vacation for an opportunity to book tours and activities last minute, how would you respond? If you’d prioritize last-minute arrangements, I’m kindly going to save you some time by suggesting that our article below likely won’t be of interest to you. (You should find the hundreds of other articles on our blog worth a read, though.) 😉 If you’d prioritize the quality of your trip, even if doing so meant that you had to take care of tour and activity arrangements prior to leaving home, please continue reading; we compiled the information, recommendations, and table below specifically for you.

If you aren’t sure which is more important to you—the quality of your travel experience or the ability to make last-minute arrangements—check out the list below. It outlines what several people consider to be advantages to selecting and booking Costa Rica tours and activities in advance, prior to arriving in Costa Rica. If you agree with our list, and see most of the points as advantages, you likely favor the quality of your travel experience. Alternatively, if you feel that most of the points on the list below are actually disadvantages (i.e., things you don’t want for your travel experience), then having the option to reserve tours and activities last minute is probably most important to you.

Advantages to reserving Costa Rica tours and activities in advance

• You can secure availability for your preferred tour date, tour time, and tour guide
• You can secure availability for tour transportation, if desired (i.e., a hotel pick-up and drop-off service provided by the tour operator or attraction)
• You can secure availability for every member of your travel group (e.g., family group, friend group, student group) to participate in the tour together at the same time
• You can secure availability for private tours and/or private tour guides, if preferred
• You can save precious vacation time by taking care of tour arrangements from home, not waiting until you’re in Costa Rica to research, book, and confirm tours and activities
• You can save money by taking advantage of early-booking discounts (see the Discount Database page on our sister website, Pura Vida! eh? Inc., for hundreds of discounts for Costa Rica tours and activities; in order to access discounts, requests for them must be submitted at least 10-14 days prior to your preferred tour dates.)
• If you choose to pay for your preferred tours and activities in advance (this isn’t always required), you can reduce the amount of cash you need to carry with you in Costa Rica or reduce the amount of foreign credit card processing fees and/or currency exchange fees charged to your credit card
• You can obtain tour confirmation documents in advance, giving you an opportunity to review the documents and rectify any mistakes
• You can travel with comfort knowing that your travel itinerary is confirmed, and peace of mind knowing what each day will bring
• You’ll know which tours and activities you’ll be experiencing in, and that can inform packing decisions (i.e., it can help you decide which clothing and footwear to bring with you to Costa Rica)
• You’ll know which hours of each day you’ll be busy, which means you’ll also be able to plan for your downtime
• You’ll have an opportunity to research the companies behind the tours and activities you’re interested in, to ensure you select well-respected and safe tour providers
• You’ll have an opportunity to seek answers to any tour-related questions you may have, either through the tour operators directly or helpful resources like our blog
• You’ll have an opportunity to submit special requests to tour operators, such as dietary requests if your chosen tour(s) include meals, providing the advance notice necessary for tour operators to be able to meet your unique needs
• You’ll be less likely to become a victim of a booking or payment-related scam, or to experience subpar tours, which can result from quick, last-minute reservations placed on a whim through unvetted sources

What happens when you reserve a Costa Rica tour or activity in advance (and what happens when you don’t)

If we look at the advantages (or disadvantages, depending on your perspective) outlined in the list above, three key themes stand out: availability, trip efficiency (itinerary/schedule efficiency and budget/spending efficiency), and high-quality tour experience. Let’s examine each in greater detail.

Availability

Availability is fluid; it changes from day to day, and its direction is impossible to predict.

This means that as a traveler, you cannot guarantee yourself a particular tour experience until you’ve made a reservation for that experience, and have received a confirmation for it. Although tour availability is much easier to come by during the low/rain/green season, when fewer foreigners visit Costa Rica, than during the high/dry/summer season, when Costa Rica experiences an influx of travelers, depending on the tours you have your eye on, availability could be a coin toss the whole year through.

If you’re wondering whether you should book Costa Rica tours and activities in advance, ask yourself this question: Are you prepared to risk securing the tour date, tour time, and/or tour guide that you want, the ability to use tour transportation (if/ applicable), the option to participate in the tour with other members of your travel group (i.e., your family or friends), the option to participate in the tour you actually want to experience (not a fallback option that happens to be available), and/or the option to participate in a private tour or hire a private guide (if desired)? If not, book the tours and activities you want for your Costa Rica trip as soon as you decide on them.

Trip efficiency

Trip efficiency is always top of mind for us. Years of helping travelers plan Costa Rica vacations—and watching some make cringeworthy trip-planning mistakes—has taught us the best (and worst) ways to build a Costa Rica itinerary. Hundreds of our blog articles tackle this topic from a variety of angles and in great depth, but to be incredibly brief, the key to forming an efficient trip to Costa Rica is to save as much vacation time and money as you can. Fortunately, reserving in advance the tours and activities that you want to experience in Costa Rica can help you do just that.

For starters, booking tours and activities early can save you the time, not to mention the hassle, of having to research, reserve, and confirm them after you’ve arrived in Costa Rica—a time when you should be enjoying, not planning, your vacation. Everything you need to do, from gathering information and asking questions about tours to making special dietary requests or requests for members of your travel group to participate in activities together, can be taken care of before you travel.

Second, by being proactive and booking your chosen tours and activities in advance, you can save yourself a lot of money, not only off the price of the tours and activities themselves, but also through the minimization of credit card fees. To save money off the price of tours and activities in Costa Rica, see the Discount Database page on our sister website, Pura Vida! eh? Inc.; it provides hundreds of discounts for Costa Rica tours and activities. In order to access the savings, requests for discounts must be submitted at least 10-14 days prior to your preferred tour dates. Regardless of whether you choose to use those tour discounts or not, if you opt to pay for tours and activities in Costa Rica in advance from home (through whichever tour operators you decide to explore Costa Rica with), you’ll also save yourself the cost of foreign credit card processing fees and/or currency exchange fees charged to your credit card when you purchase tours and activities in Costa Rica.

The level of preparedness that efficiency provides can be rewarding. It can inform you of the amount of time you’ll be active so you can plan for and fully reap the benefits of restful downtime. It can inform you of the amount of time you’ll spend traveling in a vehicle to get to and from activities, and what road conditions you’ll encounter along those routes, which is important information to have if you’re prone to carsickness or plan to travel with young children. Preparedness can also tell you the types of clothing and footwear that would be the most appropriate to pack for your trip, and the type, quantity, and timing of complimentary meals. It can also help reduce anticipation, anxiety, and chaos, and create excitement, ease, calm, and confidence, resulting in a well-crafted, stress-free, enjoyable vacation.

If you’re wondering whether you should book Costa Rica tours and activities in advance, ask yourself this question: Are you prepared to forfeit both itinerary/schedule efficiency and budget/spending efficiency by skipping ways to save vacation time and money? If not, book the tours and activities you want for your Costa Rica trip as soon as you decide on them.

High-quality tour experience

To simply say that you want to experience tours and activities during your time in Costa Rica isn’t fully accurate. What you really want is to experience high-quality tours and activities that are worth your time and money, right?

More coordination goes into providing tours and activities than you probably know. Although the degree of work varies by activity and across tour operators, it can include staffing tour guides, tour transportation drivers, and kitchen workers, providing and preparing tour equipment for use during a tour, providing and preparing tourist vans to transport participants during a tour, providing and preparing meals served during a tour, pre-purchasing entrance tickets to attractions visited during a tour, and more. Tour operators diligently coordinate various aspects of their tour experiences when they receive reservations. When reservations roll in last minute, it’s possible that some of those aspects may be mistakenly missed, purposely skipped, or arranged in a poor way.

Your choice in opting to reserve tours and activities in advance helps tour operators in Costa Rica avoid the scramble so they can deliver you their very best. Are you a vegetarian or a vegan? Tour operators are better equipped to accept diet-related requests if they’re aware of them prior to placing their food order. Would you prefer a shorter hike over a longer one? Tour operators are more likely to tailor hiking experiences to your preferences if they’re aware of them in advance and can match you with a suitable tour guide. There are loads of accommodations that tour operators are willing to make to better your travel experience in Costa Rica, provided you give them enough advance notice to safely and fittingly do so. Without an advance booking, time constraints may prevent tour operators from accepting special requests or custom arrangements.

If you’re wondering whether you should book Costa Rica tours and activities in advance, ask yourself this question: Are you prepared to possibly receive a second-rate tour experience or lose access to bespoke tour experiences because of a rushed tour arrangement? If not, book the tours and activities you want for your Costa Rica trip as soon as you decide on them.

So, should Costa Rica tours and activities be reserved in advance or not?

Throughout this article, we inundated you with advantages to booking in advance the activities and tours that you want to experience during your Costa Rica trip. We also asked you three pertinent questions:

1. Are you prepared to risk securing the tour date, tour time, and/or tour guide that you want, the ability to use tour transportation (if/ applicable), the option to participate in the tour with other members of your travel group (i.e., your family or friends), the option to participate in the tour you actually want to experience (not a fallback option that happens to be available), and/or the option to participate in a private tour or hire a private guide (if desired)?
2. Are you prepared to forfeit both itinerary/schedule efficiency and budget/spending efficiency by skipping ways to save vacation time and money?
3. Are you prepared to possibly receive a second-rate tour experience or lose access to bespoke tour experiences because of a rushed tour arrangement?

If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, go ahead and reserve your Costa Rica tours and activities in advance. Why? Because you’ve decided that taking a chance on a last-minute reservation is not worth any or all of the associated risk.

Alternatively, if you answered “yes” to all of the above questions, you probably shouldn’t reserve your Costa Rica tours and activities in advance. You may enjoy taking chances, and be okay with whatever Costa Rica experiences you get, so there’s likely no need for you to seek out and secure certain experiences upfront.

How far in advance you should reserve Costa Rica tours and activities

If you’ve decided to book tours and activities in advance, you can use our table below to quickly and easily identify how soon before your Costa Rica trip reservations should be made for tours and activities. Availability is broken down by the time of year you intend to visit Costa Rica. Months or weeks that share the same tour reservation timeline guidelines are grouped together. These are the groups represented across our tables:

• Travel during January (first two weeks)
• Travel during January (last two weeks), February, or March (excluding Easter Week)
• Travel during Easter Week (sometimes in March, sometimes in April)
• Travel during April (excluding Easter Week)
• Travel during May or June
• Travel during July or August (first two weeks)
• Travel during August (last two weeks), September, October, or November
• Travel during December (first two weeks)
• Travel during December (last two weeks)

A quick disclaimer regarding our tour reservation timeline guidelines

This should go without saying, but in case not, every tour operator and attraction in Costa Rica is different; some handle hordes of visitors daily, and others service a few visitors at a time. Our tour reservation timeline guidelines below portray, in our opinion (based on our personal and professional experience), the amount of advance notice that is needed to secure tours and activities, on average. In some cases, more advance notice may be necessary. In other cases, less advance notice may suffice.

It is equally important to recognize that although we’ve done our best to identify particular times of the year when more or less advance notice is generally required, an endless list of factors contributes to certain days, weeks, and months being more or less popular than others, and that impacts tour availability. In Costa Rica, factors including favorable weather, increased wildlife and marine life activity, ideal water and wave conditions, and national holidays often translate to an above-average number of visitors and tighter tour availability. Outside of Costa Rica, international flight price hikes, worldwide pandemics, and the cost of inflation can result in fewer visitors and wider tour availability. Because it is impossible to account for every possible factor that weighs on the topic of availability, our tour reservation timeline guidelines below reflect availability throughout an average year in Costa Rica.

Our Costa Rica tour reservations timeline guidelines

For information that can help you decide when to go to Costa Rica, don’t miss our related blog post:

When To Go To Costa Rica According To Cost, Weather, Wildlife, And More!

If you’d rather get help with deciding where to go in Costa Rica, don’t miss our related blog post:

Where To Go In Costa Rica: Determining The Best Places To Visit During Your Trip

Popular questions about reserving tours and activities early

Can I change or cancel reservations for tours that I made in advance?

In nearly every case, yes. While it’s possible that there is a greedy tour operator someplace in Costa Rica that does not accept tour cancelations, we have yet to find them, despite having worked in the tourism industry since in the mid-2000s.

When we recommend to travelers that they should reserve tours and activities in advance, we’re often met with: “What if I need to cancel?” This is a legitimate question; no one wants to lose money as a result of being proactive. Fortunately, you don’t have to. The majority of tour operators in Costa Rica have flexible tour change policies and tour cancelation policies; most allow reservations to be changed or canceled without penalty either 24, 48, or 72 hours prior to the tour date. This means you can go ahead and research, reserve, and confirm your preferred tours and activities early—to take advantage of the many, many advantages outlined above—and if something happens that you need to cancel the arrangements closer to your trip (or when you’re in Costa Rica, provided it’s not a last-minute cancelation), you can.

Can I book tours and activities on the same day or at the last minute if I want?

The answer to this question depends on two factors: the tour operator’s policy and availability. Assuming the tour operator’s policy permits last-minute reservations, a reservation will only be possible if there’s still availability for the tour.

It’s worth noting that the Covid-19 pandemic changed how tour companies operate in Costa Rica. Beyond obvious temporary changes, like business closures, there have been several lasting changes. Some tour operators have decided to only offer private tours. Many others have reduced the capacity of their public tours, in turn reducing tour availability. Arguably, the biggest change we’ve noticed is that several tour operators now require advance notice—and in some cases, advance payment—to run tours. While it may have been possible to score some tour experiences with a last-minute reservation prior to the pandemic, the options to do so now are more limited.

Are there last-minute discounts for Costa Rica tours and activities?

Also gone are the days when smart, budget-minded travelers could roll up to a tour desk and claim a remaining spot on a tour at a discounted rate. Tour discounts are certainly still available (if you missed reference to it above, the Discount Database page on our sister website, Pura Vida! eh? Inc., lists hundreds of discounts for Costa Rica tours and activities), but access requires travelers to be proactive. Nowadays, what rewards the smart, budget-minded traveler with the greatest monetary savings is advance planning before coming to Costa Rica.

When you’ve decided which tours and activities you’d like to experience during your trip, head on over to our Discount Database to browse hundreds of discounts for Costa Rica day tours:

Browse our Costa Rica Discount Database on our sister site, Pura Vida! eh? Inc.

QUESTION TO COMMENT ON: When did you book your Costa Rica tours, and how did they pan out?

Pura vida!

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