5 days / 4 nights · La Fortuna, all of it
All of the best place. None of the driving.
Five days where everything worth doing sits thirty minutes from your door. One price, everything handled.
From
$874 per couple (2)
or $1,588 per family of four
5 / 4
Days / nights
$874
From · per couple (2) · $1,588 per family of four
Couples & families
Designed for
All-in
One price, everything
Not everyone has nine days
So here’s the honest version. If you’ve got five, don’t spread them across the country — you’ll spend two of them watching it go past a window. Spend them where the density is: the one corner of Costa Rica where a volcano, a waterfall, natural hot springs, sloths, a chocolate farm and a zip-line all sit within half an hour of each other.
Here’s what that buys you at seven in the evening on day two. You’re chest-deep in a river the volcano heats. The light has gone. Something is calling from the trees and nobody can tell you what. And your own bed — not a shuttle, not a lobby, your own bed — is twenty minutes away.
You’ll see more in five days here than in five days anywhere else in the country, precisely because you’re not in a van. And there’s a reason we know exactly which five days work.
What usually goes wrong
Most short Arenal trips waste at least a day. A long airport drive nobody warned you about. A ‘tour’ that’s a van full of strangers. Four things crammed into one day because a brochure said they’d fit, and by the third you’ve stopped looking — you’re just photographing it so you can enjoy it later. Booked piece by piece from home, it’s a gamble on operators you can’t check. So we checked them for you: 25 of them, against 62,000 reviews.
What you get instead
Eight survived, and this is what we built with them. The days are constructed, not stacked. Sloths in the morning while the forest is still awake. The waterfall while your legs are fresh. The hot springs at the end of the day, because that is what they are for. A guided volcano expedition, a chocolate farm where you roast your own cacao, hanging bridges, and a zip-line — spread across four nights, with the good sense to leave room to do nothing at all. Here’s the whole list.
Your 5 days
Day by day
Day 1
Arrival, and nothing else
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Transfer from SJO to La Fortuna (~3–3.5h).
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Settle into your home at the foot of the volcano.
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The evening is deliberately empty — flights run late, and we’d rather you start rested than on schedule.
Day 2
Sloths, a waterfall, and hot water
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Guided sloth and wildlife walk — the single thing travelers remember most.
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La Fortuna Waterfall — the stairs down are real, and worth it.
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The natural hot springs as the sun goes down. This is the reset.
Day 3
The volcano, then the farm
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Guided volcano expedition with a naturalist — lava trails, Lake Tabacón, the lookouts.
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Afternoon on a four-generation family farm: coffee from cherry to cup, cacao from pod to bar, sugar cane pressed in between.
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There are two versions of this day: one that climbs, paddles and swims, and one that is the night volcano at walking pace. You will not be handed a menu — we ask who is coming before you arrive, and we book the one that fits.
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Back home early. Tomorrow is yours.
Day 4
Hanging bridges — and your call
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Hanging bridges through the rainforest with a naturalist guide.
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The rest of the day is an open slot: caves, a second evening in the hot springs, a night walk, or nothing at all.
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Tell us what you like and we’ll fill it — or leave it empty on purpose.
Day 5
Home
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Transfer to SJO (~2.5–3h).
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If your flight leaves before early afternoon, we’ll add a night near the airport rather than start your last day at 4 a.m.
All-inclusive
What’s included
4 nights — your own private home at the foot of the volcano, not a hotel room
Guided volcano expedition with a naturalist — lava trails, lookouts and Lake Tabacón
La Fortuna Waterfall — swim beneath the falls
An evening in the natural hot springs
Guided sloth and wildlife walk
Chocolate, coffee and sugar cane on one family farm — hand-picked, roasted and ground by you
Hanging bridges through the rainforest, with a naturalist guide
Canopy / zip-line over the rainforest
Airport transfers and all local transfers
A real coordinator who answers in under 15 minutes while we’re working — plus a number to call if it’s urgent, day or night
A few moments
What this trip looks like
Vetted, not guessed
Why these partners
In Arenal we scored 25 operators across 62,000 reviews and kept 8. Every partner we add anywhere else clears the same bar.
Your own private home
Where you stay, in all three regions
Not a hotel room. A place with a kitchen, a door and space to spread out — booked directly with the owner, seen in person by us before you ever set foot in it.
A private volcano park
Guided volcano expedition
Private trails to the lava flow and Lake Tabacón, with a naturalist rather than a ticket booth — because a guide is the single thing that separates a good day from a forgettable one.
A four-generation
family farm
Coffee, chocolate & cane
The highest-scoring partner in our entire 62,000-review study, and the #1 Food & Drink tour in La Fortuna. Three crops on one farm — you come for the coffee, which is genuinely excellent, and you leave talking about the chocolate. Nothing here is a staged demo.
A private rainforest
reserve
Sloths & wildlife
A guide with a telescope who finds what you’d walk straight past. Wildlife is the #1 thing travelers remember about Costa Rica — we don’t leave it to luck.
A hanging bridges park
Rainforest bridges
Small groups and a naturalist guide, on the bridges with volcano views — chosen over the busier options on purpose.
A safety-audited
canopy outfitter
Zip-line
Twelve cables over the rainforest, with an operator whose safety record we checked before its marketing.
How we price this
We don’t compete on being cheap, and we don’t mark up the handling. Every activity in your trip is billed at the operator’s own published rate — the same number you’d pay walking up to their desk yourself. What you’re not charged for is the part that took us years: reading 62,000 reviews to work out which desks are worth walking up to, and being there at seven in the morning when it’s raining on day three.
Included experiences
The experiences inside this trip
Every one hand-picked, and held to the same bar as the rest of your trip. Tap through for the full story.
Wildlife & Sloths
The #1 reason travelers remember Arenal — sloths, birds and frogs, with a guide who spots what you’d walk right past.
Arenal Volcano
The volcano up close, hanging bridges and the Lake Tabacón — the views that put La Fortuna on the map.
Coffee & Chocolate Farm
Roast, grind and taste real Costa Rican cacao on a family farm. The hands-on experience the big operators skip.
Hot Springs
Naturally heated rivers at the foot of the volcano — the reset every Arenal trip is built around.
Canopy & Zip-line
Fly over the canopy — a gentle double cable course for families, a 1 km line for the brave.
Before you ask
Questions, answered
Because five days won’t hold them. Monteverde is three and a half hours away and Manuel Antonio another four — add one and you’ve spent a fifth of your trip traveling to rush it. If you want them, take The Costa Rica Triangle and give them the nine days they need. This trip is the right five, not a smaller nine.
Arenal makes its own weather, so we never build a trip around one view. The hot springs, the waterfall, the sloths, the chocolate farm and the canopy all happen rain or shine — and we’ll tell you the clearest windows to try for the summit.
A place of your own: a kitchen, a door, room to spread out, and nobody’s lobby to walk through. If you’d rather have a hotel, say so — we have vetted ones and we’ll swap them in.
No. One price covers your stay, guides, every activity above and all transfers. If a cost you weren’t told about ever appears, we cover it.
Yes, and here’s the honest way to do it: we add a night rather than cram it into a day you already have. Rafting runs five hours, canyoning four — squeezed in alongside everything else, you’d enjoy neither.
“Our guide spotted two sloths before we’d finished our coffee. And having our own place instead of a hotel room made it feel like we lived there for a week.”
Risk-free
Our launch guarantee: Transparent Price + Real Response
Your price includes everything. If a cost you weren’t told about ever shows up, we cover it. And once you’re here, a real person answers in under 15 minutes while we’re working — with a number to call for anything urgent, day or night.
Ready to plan Arenal Complete?
Tell us your dates and who’s coming. You’ll get an instant reply on WhatsApp and book a video call with Marco.
One honest note on timing. We keep the number of trips deliberately small — it’s the only way one coordinator can carry your whole itinerary and still answer in minutes — and our five homes in La Fortuna hold eighteen people. December through April, those dates go to whoever asks first. No countdown, no fake scarcity: a limit we keep on purpose, and a calendar.