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Your guide to Arenal/La Fortuna! Looking for adventure, beauty, hiking, great food? You’ll love this area of Costa Rica! The Arenal Volcano is incredible and the hot springs are amazing. There is a lot of entertainment to fill yours days in Arenal and La Fortuna!
Arenal and La Fortuna are about 20 minutes apart. When you start looking up housing, activities, etc it helps to know! Arenal is closer to the Arenal Volcano National Park and the hot springs while La Fortuna is a bigger town and closer to the restaurants and stores.
Guide to Enjoying Arenal/La Fortuna!
We spent 4 days in the Arenal/La Fortuna area; two nights in each location. We were easily able to fill all 4 days with lots of activity. Here are a few recommendations on what to do:
- Hike around Arenal Volcano
- 2 trails with the volcano trail and the little cafe providing great views of the volcano
- Go to the free hot springs
- Across the road from the Tabacon springs in Arenal
- Try out Tabacon, Volcano Lodge or another resort hot springs
- We did both; Tabacon is more expensive but also has more springs and beautiful landscape
- Hike to the La Fortuna waterfall
- Tough hike out but you can swim
- White water rafting
- 100% Recommend rafting and definitely recommend doing it with Arenal Rafting Company
- Click here for a FULL guide on rafting with Arenal Rafting Company!
TO NOTE: For more details on how we filled up our 4 days and for more info on the activities we did, look at our full itinerary here
Where to stay
We stayed in 3 different places while in the Arenal/ La Fortuna area.
- Arenal area
- One uncharacteristic splurge for a night at the famous Tabacon due to recommendations from others.
- ~$385 for 2 people for a night; it was $432 for three of us for 1 night
- Entry into the hot springs is open to everyone for $80
- Traveling with 3:
- 3 tickets to hot springs=$240, leaving the room for the night to be $192 or $64 a night per person
- The other night we chose a cheaper hotel in the Arenal area since we were hiking the volcano the next day. However, if you didn’t want to switch hotels as frequently you could easily do 3 nights in the La Fortuna area because the drive is easy and only a 15-20 minutes
- One uncharacteristic splurge for a night at the famous Tabacon due to recommendations from others.
- La Fortuna area
- San Bosco hotel
- Nothing fancy at all, but clean
- Walking distance to downtown
- We chose it because it offers free entrance to Volcano Lodge hot springs
- San Bosco hotel
Views from the room and at the hot springs of Tabacon
Where to eat
There are many restaurants in La Fortuna to choose from. Once you get toward Arenal there are less options.
- Arenal:
- Que Rico is a great option closer to the Arenal National Park on lodges with the hot springs
- El Novillo del Arenal
- Has a great view of the Volcano during the day
- I had the traditional Costa Rican meal and it was 👌🏼
- La Fortuna
- Pollo Fortuneno was affordable. Known for their rotisserie-style chicken and ribs
- There were a lot of options of restaurants in La Fortuna compared to Arenal. Whatever you are craving, there is likely a restaurant to fulfill your needs
View from El Novillo del Arenal
Recommended length of stay
We spent a total of 4 days in the Arenal/La Fortuna area. To us, it felt like the perfect amount of days. We had plenty of time to do what we had planned even with the shorter days of October. If you have more daytime activities or hiking on your to-do list then you may need another day.
Your guide to Arenal/La Fortuna! We enjoyed the unique landscape of this area of Costa Rica and the outdoor activities available. I HIGHLY recommend taking a white water rafting excursion and definitely recommend taking advantage of the free hot springs. Don’t forget to get a traditional Costa Rican meal while you are in town!
Fair warning: don’t expect this area of Costa Rica to be cheap. Most every activity you want to do will cost you, and sometimes it is a dumb amount of money for things like taking a hike. However, most places we paid to see were beautiful. If you find some free trails and waterfalls off the beaten path that you recommend, please let me know! Enjoy your trip!