Tours by Locals in Costa Rica in 2026: The Best Sightseeing

Costa Rica's sightseeing centres on a compact city core with a 19th-century opera house, an underground pre-Columbian gold museum, and a national museum in a fortress where bullet holes from the 1948 civil war are still visible on the exterior. The colonial churches of the Orosi Valley and the Cartago Basílica extend the historical circuit. The country's biodiversity — Corcovado National Park, the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and the Arenal Volcano — is the sightseeing register most visitors come for, and it delivers. The quetzal bird, the jaguar corridor, and the sea turtle nesting beaches offer wildlife encounters of genuine rarity. Tours by locals often make the place feel warmer, sharper, and more personal. It really hits differently.