Three days in La Fortuna: the rivers here come out of the ground hot

Two nights under Arenal, with the lava trails in the national park, a waterfall at the foot of a long staircase, a free thermal river and the lake road west.

Copy this itinerary
Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
La Fortuna
Places
7 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

On 29 July 1968 Arenal, which everybody had taken for an ordinary forested hill, blew out its western side and destroyed three villages. The one on the eastern flank, then called El Borio, was untouched, and afterwards it renamed itself La Fortuna, meaning the lucky one. For the next forty-two years the volcano put on a nightly show of red rock rolling down the slope, and the town built an entire economy on people coming to watch it.

Then in October 2010 it stopped. There has been no lava since, and anybody selling you a lava tour is selling you a memory. What is left is better than that sounds: a textbook cone that is visible from most of the town on a clear morning, forest growing back over flows that were still glowing twenty years ago, and a huge amount of heat in the ground.

That heat is the real reason to give this place three days. Rivers come down off the volcano already hot, and the whole valley is built around getting into them, from a resort where you drink at a bar standing waist-deep to a free stretch of thermal river under a road bridge where the town goes on a Sunday. Add a waterfall, a lake and some very good walking, and two nights is the minimum.

Highlights

  • Walking out onto a lava flow that was still moving when the town's older guides were young
  • The Fortuna waterfall, dropping into a green pool at the bottom of a long staircase
  • Sitting in hot water in a public river at dusk, which is what the resorts next door charge for
  • Arenal's cone appearing out of the cloud for twenty minutes and going again
  • Lake Arenal from the dam road, with the volcano standing behind it

Where to stay

La Fortuna, two nights

The town is a grid of a few streets around a church and a park, with the bus station at one corner, an enormous number of tour desks, and the volcano filling the western skyline whenever the cloud allows. It exists for visitors and does not pretend otherwise, which means good food, high prices and a certain amount of hustle.

The volcano is six kilometres west and the national park entrance is beyond it on the road towards the lake. Between the two are the hot springs, most of them strung along the same stretch of road, because that is where the thermal water comes out. The waterfall is south of town on a separate road.

Beyond the park the road climbs to Lake Arenal, which is the largest lake in the country and mostly artificial, dammed in the 1970s for hydroelectricity, and continues round to Tilarán and the turn for Monteverde. The village of El Castillo, on the far shore, has the best views of the cone that exist and almost nobody in it.

Day by day

Day 1 in La Fortuna

The river pool, and free hot water at dusk

Do nothing expensive on the first afternoon. The Río Fortuna runs past the edge of town, and at El Salto there is a deep green pool with a rope swing hanging over it, ten minutes from the main street and free. Local teenagers use it and so does everybody else, and it is cold, which after a day of travel is the point.

Then get the volcano's bearings. From almost anywhere in town, look west: the cone is the whole horizon when it is clear, dark and symmetrical with a scar down its northwestern side, and it disappears into cloud for hours at a time. Learn to take the twenty minutes it gives you rather than waiting for a better one.

In the evening, drive or hitch out along the park road to the public thermal river across from Tabacón. It runs under and around a road bridge at bath temperature, free to anybody who walks down to it, with small waterfalls and pools of different temperatures. There are no changing rooms, no lockers and no lighting, so go before dark, bring a torch for the way back, and leave anything you would mind losing behind.

  1. 15:00

    River pool

    Visit

    Ten minutes from the middle of town and free. Cold, deep and there is a rope swing. Take something to sit on.

  2. 17:00

    Tabaconcito Hot Springs

    Visit

    Free thermal river opposite Tabacón, on the park road. No facilities at all, so bring a towel and a torch and leave valuables at the hotel.

With more time: If free and rough is not the mood, EcoTermales a few kilometres out is the calmest of the paid springs and limits itself to a hundred guests a session, which is why it needs booking a day ahead.

Day 2 in La Fortuna

Lava flows, a waterfall, and the springs after dark

Start at the national park, on the far side of the volcano from town. The trails here are short, well made and more interesting than their length suggests: one runs out onto a lava field from the 1992 flow, black broken rock with forest closing in from both sides and the summit directly above, and another climbs to a viewpoint over the whole cone and Lake Arenal beyond it. Go at opening, both for the light and because the cone is most often visible in the first two hours of the day. Do not expect lava: the volcano has been quiet since 2010.

In the afternoon, the Fortuna waterfall, on the other side of town. You pay at the top, then take a long concrete staircase down through forest to the base, where roughly seventy metres of water comes over a cliff into a pool of very cold blue-green water you can swim in. Ten minutes down, twenty back up, and the stairs are wet. There is no time limit once you are in.

Finish the day in hot water again, this time paying for it. Tabacón is the one to spend money on if you are going to: pools at every temperature stepped down a thermal river through planted gardens, with a bar you wade up to and, on a clear evening, the volcano over the trees. Book the evening slot and eat there or in town afterwards.

  1. 08:00

    Arenal Volcano

    Nature

    National park gate on the western side, ticketed in dollars, and the trails take two to three hours. Be there when it opens.

  2. 13:00

    Fortuna Waterfall

    Nature

    Ticketed and reachable by taxi. Ten minutes down the steps, twenty back up, and take a swimsuit for the pool.

  3. 17:00

    Tabacon Hot Springs

    Nature

    The grandest of the springs and priced accordingly. Towels and lockers are included, the evening slot is the good one, and packages with a guided walk cost less than booking separately.

With more time: The hanging bridges strung through the canopy northwest of the volcano are the other classic half day here, and the sloth walks on the small private reserves just outside town have a genuinely high hit rate in the early morning.

Day 3 in La Fortuna

The lake road, and the butterflies

Take the last morning westwards, which is the direction everybody heading for Monteverde or Guanacaste goes anyway. The road runs past the park entrance and climbs to the dam at the eastern end of Lake Arenal, and the view from the dam road, with the water on one side and the cone standing behind it, is the postcard this region actually delivers.

The lake is the biggest in Costa Rica and it is largely man-made, flooded in the 1970s for hydroelectricity, which drowned two villages and produced a long, windy, cool body of water that the country's windsurfers have used ever since. Boat trips, kayaks and fishing all run from the shore, and the road round the northern side to Tilarán is one of the better drives in the country.

On the way, the butterfly conservatory near El Castillo is a better stop than the name suggests: six large atrium habitats reproducing the different forest zones around the lake, with butterflies, frogs and insects in each, and a breeding laboratory you can look into. An hour, and it is the closest thing to a guaranteed wildlife sighting in a region where everything else depends on luck.

  1. 08:30

    Lake Arenal

    Other

    Half an hour west by road. The dam and the hills above El Castillo have the views, and boat trips and kayaks run from the shore.

  2. 11:30

    Arenal Butterfly Conservatory

    Visit

    Just short of El Castillo, ticketed, and an hour is enough. Six habitats and a working breeding lab.

With more time: If you are going back east instead, Baldí is on the road out of town and is the one to pick if you are travelling with children who have had enough of looking at a mountain.

Before you go

Getting in and out

Direct buses from San José take about five and a half hours and cost around US$7, or you can go via Ciudad Quesada and change, which is often quicker. Shared tourist shuttles run from San José and the airport a few times a day, cost several times as much and take four hours door to door.

Leaving is less orderly. Departure times from La Fortuna are genuinely unreliable and asking three people gets three answers, so pick an approximate time, turn up early and expect to wait. Touts at the bus station make a living out of the confusion.

West to Monteverde, the standard route is jeep-boat-jeep: a minibus to the eastern shore of Lake Arenal, a launch across it, and another minibus up the far side, about three hours in total. It is more expensive than the bus and it saves a whole day, and the crossing itself is the best view of the volcano you will get.

Getting around

There is barely any public transport around the volcano. Most people use taxis, ride apps, which run at about half the taxi fare, or a rented car, and you will pay for parking everywhere you stop. Scooters go for about US$40 a day and less by the week, which is fine in the dry season and unpleasant in the wet.

Hitching is common here and works, particularly on the park road and out towards the hot springs, and it is what a lot of younger travellers do.

The town itself is small and walkable. Everything else, including the waterfall, the park gate and every hot spring, needs wheels of some sort.

Hot springs, from free to absurd

The paid resorts are the famous ones. Tabacón is the grandest: landscaped pools at several temperatures fed by a thermal river, artificial waterfalls, a bar you swim up to and a buffet if you want it. Baldí runs to sixteen pools and a set of slides and is a good deal louder. EcoTermales is smaller, quieter and caps admission at a hundred people, so it needs booking.

The free option is the stretch of naturally hot water beside the park road, which the resort next door ran until a court found that rivers in Costa Rica belong to the public. There are no facilities, no lifeguard and nowhere secure to leave anything, and it is a beautiful place to sit in warm water at dusk with the town's families around you. Take a friend, carry nothing you would mind losing, and mind your footing on the rocks.

Almost every hotel sells a package pairing a guided walk on the volcano with an evening at one of the springs, and it usually costs less than buying the two separately.

Weather, and one scam

This is one of the wettest corners of Costa Rica. The volcano spends a good deal of its time inside cloud and there is no season in which it is reliably out, so the strategy is to look up often and be ready to change plans when it appears. The drier months are roughly February to April.

Rain here arrives hard and passes. Bring a proper waterproof rather than an umbrella, and shoes that can be soaked, because the park trails and the waterfall steps will be wet whatever the forecast says.

One specific warning: on the bus towards the national park, a man has been known to call out a stop for a private attraction with a name close to the national park's and lead confused visitors off the bus to pay a substantial fee for a one-hour walk on private land. Wait until the driver announces the real Parque Nacional.

La Fortuna is a town that lost its main attraction in 2010 and turned out not to need it. The cone is still there, the forest growing back over the flows is genuinely interesting to walk through, and the geothermal water underneath the whole valley never depended on the eruptions in the first place.

What it does mean is going in with the right expectation. Nobody is going to see lava, the volcano hides in cloud for large parts of most days, and the town charges for everything it can. Against that: a free thermal river at dusk, a seventy-metre waterfall at the bottom of a staircase, and a lake road west with the best view in northern Costa Rica on it.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Can I still see lava on Arenal?
No. The volcano stopped erupting in October 2010 and has been quiet since. You may see steam or a wisp of gas from the summit on a clear day, and that is all. What you can do is walk out onto flows from the eruptive period, which is more interesting than watching a dark hillside at night.
Which hot spring should I pick?
Tabacón for the full production, EcoTermales for something quieter that caps its numbers, Baldí if you want slides and noise. The free thermal river opposite Tabacón is the best value in Costa Rica, with the caveat that it has no facilities, no security and no lighting.
How many days do I need?
Two nights covers the park, the waterfall and the springs. A third buys you the hanging bridges, a sloth walk or a day on the lake, and it also gives the volcano another morning to come out of the cloud, which is worth more than it sounds.
How do I get to Monteverde from here?
Jeep-boat-jeep: minibus to the lake, launch across, minibus up the other side, about three hours. Going round by road takes most of a day. The boat also gives you the best angle on the volcano of the whole trip.
Do I need a car?
It helps a great deal. There is almost no bus service around the volcano and everything is spread along five or ten kilometres of road. Ride apps work and cost about half a taxi, scooters are cheap, and hitching on the park road is normal here.
When should I come?
February to April is the driest, but this is a wet region in every month and the volcano is often in cloud regardless. Book the flexible things and take the clear window when it turns up rather than planning around a forecast.
Is it worth it if I only have a week in Costa Rica?
Yes, and it is usually the first stop out of San José, about five hours by bus or four by shuttle. Copy these three days and continue west to Monteverde and the Pacific, or north to the Nicaraguan border.