Zona Sur Travel Video Guide

Zona Sur Travel Itinerary

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Costa Rica's Zona Sur (southern zone) is the country's least-known region, both for Ticos and for travellers. Geographically it's a diverse area, ranging from the agricultural heartland of the Valle de el General to the high peaks of the Cordillera de Talamanca, most notably the mountain pass at Cerro de la Muerte ("Death Mountain"), and Cerro el Chirripo - at 3819m one of the highest peaks in Central America. South of Chirripo, the cordillera falls away steeply into the river-cut lowlands of the Valle de Diquis around Palmar, and the coffee-growing Valle de Coto Brus, near the border with Panama.

The chief draw for travellers is the Osa Peninsula in the extreme southwest, home to the Parque Nacional Corcovado , one of the country's prime rainforest hiking destinations, and the remote and picturesque Bahia Drake . Less off the beaten track is the Playa Dominical area of the Pacific coast, a surfing destination whose tremendous tropical beauty is beginning to attract increasing numbers of visitors. Golfito , the region's only town of any size, suffered from an unsavoury reputation for years after the pull-out of the United Fruit Company's banana operations in 1985, though its fortunes have improved since being made a tax-free zone for manufactured goods from Panama.

Despite the abundance of budget accommodation in the Zona Sur, you'll find yourself spending more than you bargained for simply because of the time, distance and planning involved in getting to many of the region's more beautiful spots. Many people prefer to take a package rather than travel independently, and travellers who stay at the more expensive rainforest lodges often choose to fly in.

Climatically the Zona Sur has two distinct regions. The first comprises the Pacific lowlands from south of Quepos roughly to the top of the Osa Peninsula, and the upland Valle

de el General and the Talamancas, both of which experience a dry season from December to April. The second region - the Osa Peninsula, Golfito and Golfo Dulce - does not have so marked a dry season, while during the wettest part of the year, from around October to December, spectacular seasonal thunderstorms canter in from the Pacific. In the rainy season, some parts of Parque Nacional Corcovado become more or less unwalkable, local roads become impassable, and everything gets more difficult.

Your Tips For Zona Sur

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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