San Jose Travel Video Guide

San Jose Travel Itinerary

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Sprawling smack in the middle of the fertile Valle Central, SAN JOSE has a spectacular setting, ringed by the jagged silhouettes of soaring mountains - some of them volcanoes - on all sides. That's where the compliments end, however, and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who has much good to say about the city's potholed streets and car-dealership architecture - not to mention the choking diesel fumes, kamikaze drivers and chaotically unplanned expansion. In the gridlocked centre things are wearingly hectic, with vendors of fruit, lottery tickets and cigarettes jostling on street corners, and thousands of shoestores tumbling out onto the sidewalks.

In general travellers talk about the city as they do about bank line-ups and immigration offices: a pain, but unavoidable. That said, if you've been travelling through the region, you'll find that compared to, say, San Salvador or Managua, San Jose is not only a reassuringly

safe place (though street crime is rising) but also vibrant and cosmopolitan, with a sprinkling of excellent museums , some elegant buildings and landscaped parks, good cafes and the odd intriguing art gallery. Which is all to the good: most people find themselves spending some time here - the city is a major transportation hub, and many journeys across the country involve backtracking through the capital - learning to enjoy it, and even becoming perversely fond of the place.

Your Tips For San Jose

• Valle Central and the highlands Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  Costa Rica's Valle Central - literally "Central Valley", though it's actually an inter-mountain plateau poised at an elevation of between 3000 and 4000m - is a predominantly agricultural region, with staggered green coffee terraces set amidst patchwork-quilt fields and loomed over by the blue-black summits of the surrounding mountains. - Costa Rica
  

• Central Pacific and Southern Nicoya Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  While Costa Rica's Central Pacific area is less of a geographical or cultural entity than other regions of the country, it does contain several of its most popular tourist spots, among them the number-one attraction, the Reserva Biologica Bosque Nuboso Monteverde (Monteverde Cloudforest Reserve), draped over the ridge of the Cordillera de Tilaran. - Costa Rica
  

• Zona Sur Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  Costa Rica's Zona Sur (southern zone) is the country's least-known region, both for Ticos and for travellers. - Costa Rica
  

• Limon Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  Sparsely populated Limon province sweeps south in an arc from Nicaragua down to Panama. - Costa Rica
  

• Guanacaste Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  Guanacaste province , hemmed in by mountains to the east and the Pacific to the west, and bordered to the north by Nicaragua, is distinctly different from the rest of Costa Rica. - Costa Rica
  

• Zona Norte Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  Costa Rica's Zona Norte ("northern zone") spans the hundred-odd kilometres from the base of the Cordillera Central to just short of the mauve-blue mountains of southern Nicaragua. - Costa Rica
  

• San Jose Costa Rica Travel Videos
  Costa Rica Travel Itinerary
  Sprawling smack in the middle of the fertile Valle Central, SAN JOSE has a spectacular setting, ringed by the jagged silhouettes of soaring mountains - some of them volcanoes - on all sides. - Costa Rica