Costa Rica on a Budget: Our Exact Family Travel Costs

The lure of Costa Rica can be really strong. There are few other places in the world where you can see such incredible biodiversity, swim in two oceans and pack in some major adrenaline-fuelled fun. But this all comes with a decent-sized price tag. Can you REALLY do Costa Rica on a budget? And how much does it really cost for a family trip?

When I plan travel, there are definitely two stages: the dreamy listing out of everything we want to do (the fun part) and then the panic about budget and how we’ll afford it. And when you’re travelling as a family of four, those rainforest dreams can start to look painfully expensive!

If you’re dreaming of experiencing the Pura Vida but REALLY nervous about how much of your hard-earned cash you might need to budget for Costa Rica, then that’s where we come in.

We’ll break down the cost of all the aspects of travel, including accommodation, transport, food and activities. This includes EXACTLY what we spent (to the penny!) in our five weeks of travelling around Costa Rica with kids. We’ll show you how we kept daily costs under $55 a day and found gorgeous family stays for less than $60/night.

Budget travel to Costa Rica (with a family!) IS possible – and we’ll share tips too on how to save money along the way. 

Here’s exactly how we turned our backpacker budget into five unforgettable weeks in Costa Rica.

Is Costa Rica expensive?

However far along you might be in your Costa Rica trip planning, you’re likely to have already noticed that Costa Rica is not a ‘budget’ destination. Depending on what you want to do and when, the costs can really rack up. 

But if you’re careful in your planning then Costa Rica on a budget is still an AMAZING experience. It’s also a relatively small country so whilst the costs of moving around aren’t dirt cheap, the distances between destinations are quite short. 

Which means you can still pack a LOT in to one trip. And when you think about the sheer number of bucketlist activities you can do in just a couple of weeks then a trip to Costa Rica starts to actually look like really good value.

Cost of travel in Costa Rica

We’ll break down the main costs of travel here, with a guide to the kind of Costa Rica prices you can likely expect.

How much does accommodation cost in Costa Rica?

• Budget stays: £60-70 (US$77.50-90) per night 
• Mid-range stays: £90-100 (US$115-130) per night
• Luxury: £150+ (US$190) per night

We stuck mostly to budget stays and found some lovely spots with big family rooms at this price point. We also splashed out for a once-in-a-lifetime stay at Rafiki Safari Lodge that fell in to the ‘luxury’ category. But was absolutely worth it for the whole experience of staying under canvas in the jungle!

How much does transport cost in Costa Rica?

The local transport such as public buses and taxis are an affordable way to get around. But as you’ll see from the costs below, if you’re moving around it makes a LOT of sense to hire a car. Especially if you are travelling with family.

• Car Hire for one week (small SUV): £400-500/US$533.50-667
• Shared Shuttles: £100-250/US$133.50-333.50 per journey, depending on distance (four people)
• Long distance buses: £30-40/US$40-53 (four people, for journeys of c.4hours)

How much does it cost to eat out in Costa Rica?

For a family of four, it’s not cheap to eat out in Costa Rica. This can quickly take up a lot of your budget! On average, we found that these amounts were the totals when we did choose to eat in restaurants:

• Budget/local restaurants: £50-60 (US$65-77) for four
• Mid-range restaurants: £75-100 (US$97-130) for four

We DID have some absolutely delicious meals in budget and local restaurants. But as a general rule we tried to stick to just buying ice-creams and treats while we were out.

If you’re aiming to self-cater, then be aware that the cost of food in the stores in Costa Rica can also be fairly high. 

What was our planned family travel budget for Costa Rica?

Budgeting for Costa Rica – and our whole family gap year – was a real challenge. I worked through a TON of accommodation on booking websites to figure out approximate costs. And then the same again for specific activities and travel between destinations.

This huge chunk of research resulted in our final budget below!

Accommodation Budget: £2,520/US$3360

This was for a total of 36 nights accommodation. Using booking.com and Airbnb means that if you take the time you can really get an idea of the average cost per night for each destination.

We were aiming for low-mid range accommodation – preferably with kitchen facilities to allow us to save on eating out. Based on this, we pencilled in £70/US$93 per night.

Activities Budget: £1,262/US$1685

I know, this is a VERY specific amount! But let’s face it, if you’re travelling all the way to Costa Rica, you REALLY want to make sure you can do all those bucketlist things you’ve been dreaming of.

To get to this weirdly specific number, I researched all the activities that I thought we would possibly want to do. I added the exact cost of these for a family of four to the budget. 

This included a whole range, from national park entry fees to whitewater rafting. Everything I could think of that our family of four wanted to experience. Check out the massive list of what we ACTUALLY spent on activities further down!

Transport Budget: £550/US$733

If you’ve got a rough idea of where you want to go in Costa Rica then you can map the cost of transport out in advance too. Our £550/US$733 figure came from researching the actual costs of all ‘big ticket’ transport such as long distance buses/minivans and any flights in the region. 

I did NOT include the cost of short taxi or bus journeys in this section as I was hoping that the daily budget would be sufficient to cover these. And in general, this worked out for us.

Daily Budget: £2,628/US$3,506

I’ll admit it – this was much more of a ‘hope for the best’ approach! I basically separated out the remainder of what I thought we could afford into a daily budget. 

The idea was that HOPEFULLY this would be sufficient to cover food, local transportation, cheaper activities, laundry and any other miscellaneous spending.

This worked out at £73/US$97 per day for our trip.

Total Budget for Costa Rica: £6,960/US$9,285

What was our ACTUAL total spend in Costa Rica?

So in the end, did all my careful budget planning for Costa Rica work?!

These are the EXACT amounts we spent on everything in Costa Rica. Don’t forget that this covers five weeks of travel for a family of four. So depending on how long your trip is and how many of you there are, you’ll need to adjust it. 

What this should do though is give you a real-life look in to what you can do in Costa Rica on a budget.

Accommodation Spend: £2,223/US$2,973

So from an initial budget per night of £70/US$93.50 our accommodation actually came in at an average of £61.75/US$82.50 per night. Certain places came in well under at around £40-45/US$53.50-60 per night. 

Want the find the best places to stay in Costa Rica?

Check out our in-depth guide to the BEST hotels, eco-lodges and beachfront getaways for families (on any budget!)

Show me all the details!

But we also splashed out on a stay at Rafiki Safari Lodge at the other end of the scale! I felt like this one was more of an experience than just a stay (so totally worth it!).

These are our top budget stays from our time in Costa Rica. All have family rooms and we would absolutely personally recommend them.

Activities Spend: £1,514.25/US$2,025

Despite ALL of that careful planning in advance we did go over budget on activities. There was just so much on offer and we wanted to do it ALL!

This total spend included all of the following activities:

• Whitewater rafting in Sarapiqui: £210/US$280.80
• Cooking Class in Sarapiqui: £81.50/US$109
• Ziplining in La Fortuna: £193.50/US$258.75
• Sky Adventures La Fortuna – Hanging Bridges and Cable Car: £242/US$323.50
• Sloth Tour in La Fortuna: £80/US$107
• Entrance to Manuel Antonio National Park: £48/US$64
• Bioluminescence Tour in Cabuya: £188/US$251
• Nesting Turtles Tour in Tamarindo: £160/US$214
• Arenal Volcano Walk: £43/US$57.50
• Entrance to Snake Garden in Sarapiqui: £48.50/US$64.85
• Ethnobotany Tour in Sarapiqui: £49/US$65.50
• Chocolate Tour in Sarapiqui: £92.50/US$124
• Jaguar Rescue Centre in Manzanillo: £38.75/US$52
• Entrance to Cahuita National Park: £9/US$12 (donation)
• Entrance to Manzanillo National Park : £7.50/US$10 (donation)
• Entrance to Cabo Blanco National Park: £23/US$30.75

When you look at this HUGE list of what we managed to pack in, it’s not surprising that we went a smidge over budget. These are all for a family of four (two adults and two kids).

Transport Spend: £1,018/US$1,361

Again, we overspent here. This is nearly double my transport budget for Costa Rica! As with most of our world travels, my plan was to use the public bus system to get around. I’d checked routes in advance and priced them up for the four of us.

But when we got to Costa Rica, we found it way harder than I’d thought to get around on public transport. Yep, certain routes are totally doable. Buses between major destinations like San Jose, Manuel Antonio and Tamarindo are pretty frequent and comfortable. 

Outside the major routes though it’s much trickier. Especially with kids in tow! 

Private shuttle companies do cover most routes but these were VERY expensive. We took one for the journey from Sarapipui to Cahuita and it was over £200/$US267 for the four of us. For one journey.

In the end we hired a car which was just so much easier! It did actually save us a ton of money on shuttle journeys. Plus it’s obviously way more flexible and allows you to see corners of Costa Rica that you might otherwise miss.

Daily Budget Spend: £1,779/US$2,378.50

While we might have gone over on activities and transport, we did save on the daily spend. 

We rarely ate out (except for ice-creams and snacks) which saved us a significant amount. During the last couple of weeks on the Caribbean Coast we’d got our daily spend on food/essentials down to around £25-40/US$33.50-53.50 a day.

This was mainly by only buying locally sourced foods like beans, rice and eggs. Even pasta in Costa Rica is much more expensive! Saving on the daily basics meant we could save our cash for the big ticket activities that we all wanted to do. And is ultimately what we wanted to visit Costa Rica to do!

Total Actual Spend: £6,534.25/US$8,736.23

This is for our family of four, travelling across Costa Rica for just over five weeks. It equates to £181.50/US$243 per day.

When you add in the cost of our return flights to/from the UK this comes in at just under £8,500/US$11,365.  

Doing Costa Rica on a budget DOES NOT mean having to sacrifice on the experience. My biggest recommendation would be to focus on the experiences and activities that really make the trip. 

You can scrimp and save on accommodation and eating out if you need to.  But things like sloth spotting, seeing nesting turtles and swimming in the bioluminescence are worth every penny!

Tips for travelling in Costa Rica on a budget

Don’t forget these few crucial bits in your efforts to save money travelling in Costa Rica!

• Eat locally sourced food. This does for most places in the world when you’re looking to travel cheaply, but DEFINITELY applies to Costa Rica. Rice, beans, eggs, vegetables and fruit are widely available in every tiny store. And they are filling, healthy and affordable.
• If you can, avoid visiting in the absolute peak month of December when accommodation will cost you much more.
• Suncream and insect repellent are REALLY expensive in Costa Rica. Try to pack enough for your whole trip if possible.
• If you are a family then hiring a car might actually save you money on longer distance travel. The cost of shuttles (even the shared ones) can add up very quickly!
• Book accommodation with basic kitchen facilities so you can save on eating out – this is really key to saving money
• Animals are everywhere – whilst we did one guided sloth tour you can see so much of the wildlife without hiring a guide.

FINAL TIP FOR BUDGET TRAVEL: Use the fab Trabee App to track every single bit of your spend. This really helps keep your budget on track!

Ready to plan your own Costa Rica family adventure?

If you’re planning a family trip to Costa Rica, then check out some of our other posts for inspiration, advice and guidance. Or download our FREE guide to Costa Rica Travel with Kids here. All the info in one handy pdf!

And if you need a bit more help planning the dream Costa Rica family adventure, check out our 2-week itinerary here!

The Perfect 2-Week Costa Rica Itinerary for Families

Costa Rica August 3, 2025

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