Pura Vida Hotel

05/07/2026

We understand the need for emotional support cats when you are 5,000 miles or 15,000 km from home. Our famous and seriously friendly not-my-cat Erick is very happy to stand in. Just one reason why so many of our guests at the breakfast table have been to the Pura Vida before. I believe Erick has been cited more times than my bad jokes on Tripadvisor.

Erick and I look forward to hosting you on your next trip in or out of Costa Rica 🙂 We'd be happy to help you plan an interesting route. Or you could choose the Holiday Inn Express :-).

Book with confidence: All reservations are 100% cancelable. We only need a name and an email address to hold your room - no credit card required, just a sense of humor.

🌿 Start your quest at the 2nd most highly rated Inn in all of Costa Rica https://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Hotels... . Visit www.puravidahotel.com or
WhatsApp 8701 3411

28/06/2026

Attention European Venturers! 🇨🇷

Are you planning an escape from Berlin, Budapest, or Birmingham to the neo-tropics?

If you are flying into Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO), your first night should be defined by serene garden paths rather than airport stress and dull hotel room boxes. Welcome to the Pura Vida Hotel, recently recognized as the #2 B&B and Inn in all of Costa Rica https://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Hotels-cInnsBB-g291982 and ranked in the top 1% of hotels worldwide.

Perched just minutes from the airport but strategically located off the flight path, we offer the perfect "decompression chamber" to prepare you for the reality of the forest. Instead of jet engines, your first morning will be filled with the scent of rare orchids and views of the Poás Volcano from our lush botanical gardens.

Why European travelers choose us as their Costa Rican launchpad:

Stress-Free Arrival: We provide a free taxi service for all international arrivals. No navigating unfamiliar roads on a moonless night!

The "First Breakfast" Strategy: Skip the rental car counters. We deliver your 4WD directly to your breakfast table while you enjoy our famous bread pudding and fresh tropical fruit

Authentic Comfort: Retreat to one of our four private casitas or the Volcano Studio, all featuring proper bathrooms, comfortable mattresses and good pillows

The "Venturer" Spirit: We aren't a corporate box; we are a lifestyle run by a "reasonably sane" staff dedicated to helping you find the road less traveled

Book with confidence: All reservations are 100% cancelable. We only need a name and an email address to hold your room - no credit card required, just a sense of humor

🌿 Start your quest at the #2 Inn in paradise. Visit www.puravidahotel.com or
WhatsApp +506 8701 3411

#1 TripAdvisor B&B/Inn. Tuetal Sur, Alajuela, Costa Rica. Paradise. Let us be your guide to Costa Rica - 10 mins from SJO - free airport taxi on arrival in country.

24/06/2026

The Tour of the 47 San Rafaels of Costa Rica.

Over the years, I discovered that Costa Rica once seemed to have a national hobby: naming every second village, cow pasture, and mountain ridge San Rafael.

For centuries this was not a problem. Our forefathers never quite got the road-building gig right, and Costa Ricans never developed much interest in maps or in what the people three valleys over were up to. If you wanted to name your settlement after the archangel Raphael, you simply did. There was no need to check with another San Rafael because they were effectively on another planet.

Now, I should digress.

I have long hoped that data might eventually bring some order to Costa Rica though you don’t really mess with culture. Collecting obscure information and trying to do something useful with it is a habit of mine. Years ago, one of the local gr**go rags announced the discovery of Costa Rica's 200th volcano. This struck me as odd. How does one misplace something like that?

Further investigation uncovered one researcher insisting there were 116 volcanoes and later a University of Costa Rica professor, personally known to one of our naturalist guides, who assured us there were 162. I now tell guests there are 165 volcanoes in Costa Rica. I don't know why, but I find that number more satisfying. I even started mapping them once and plotted about 75 of them on Google "mymaps" before giving up due to a complete lack of reliable data.

But back to my story.

If your next innkeeper says, "I'm in San Rafael," your odds of arriving at a dairy farm instead of your hotel are not even close to even.

You could, of course, construct a specialized gr**go protocol:

Which province?

Which canton?

Arriba or Abajo?

The other San Rafael?

Are you sure?

Just a few of the “actual” San Rafaels:

San Rafael de Heredia
San Rafael de Escazú
San Rafael de Poás
San Rafael de Alajuela
San Rafael de Grecia
San Rafael Arriba (Desamparados)
San Rafael Abajo (Desamparados)
San Rafael de Oreamuno
San Rafael de Guatuso
San Rafael de Pérez Zeledón
San Rafael de Santa Ana
San Rafael de Vara Blanca
San Rafael de Peñas Blancas
San Rafael de Ciudad Quesada
San Rafael de Valverde Vega
San Rafael de Santa Cruz de Turrialba
San Rafael de Coronado
San Rafael de Puriscal
San Rafael de Río Cuarto and on and on and on

You wonder why the Costa Rican post office never made any inroads on actually delivering mail but was pretty good at commemorative stamps :-))

According to my current research, there are at least 44 confirmed locations carrying the name. Though if you ask AI to produce a definitive map of them all, it quickly becomes confused and starts acting snarky, so I can't really confirm the number.

Mathematically, this provides something like 42 billion possible seven-day routes where you wake up in one San Rafael and go to bed in another.

For the truly inquisitive Curious Georges seeking the rural soul of Costa Rica, I have designed an itinerary where you wake up each morning in one San Rafael and go to bed that night in another. I search for such guests every morning at the Pura Vida Hotel breakfast table.To date, nobody has expressed the slightest interest in me organizing such a tour.

So while I wait for a Curious George brave enough to tackle this concept and make it real, I'll be on the orchid terrace serving Nhi's bread pudding at breakfast and helping the next tourist with ideas for today.

Come join us, provided you've packed a sense of humor and a healthy distrust of any GPS that confidently claims to know the way to your San Rafael.

P.S. Did I tell you about Cousin Vinnie, who was supposed to meet us in Muelle for lunch?

Yes, you long-time residentes already know how this story ends.

He was in Muelle de Sarapiquí.

We were in Muelle de San Carlos.

Start your journey here: www.puravidahotel.com An example of a route you may not have thought of: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1BR4e3bohCNa1t-HCxC292R1PHqc&usp=sharing
Stay tuned for the next seriously useful installment.

16/06/2026

Back when I was a "corporate dude" back in gr**golandia, I operated on a level of misguided optimism that only a newbie gr**go can maintain.

Before leaving for Costa Rica I spent my days at a desk dreaming of the neo-tropics and constructing what I thought were the most brilliant tours for our future hotel website.

Once we actually got the Pura Vida Hotel running, I realized that the "natural order of things" has a life of it's own. In Costa Rica, a meeting is a suggestion, but an active volcano is an event.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting short articles for the true "Venturer"—that rare 4% of the population who prefers undeveloped destinations and authentic local customs.

Coming soon to your feed:

The Tour of the San Rafaels: A journey where you wake up in one San Rafael and go to bed in another. With at least 44 confirmed locations, there are roughly 7 million potential routes.

3 Falls in a Day and I’m Still Walking: A tour based on an out-of-print book that led one guest to trek through a collapsed path while hearing a waterfall he could never actually find.

The First Breakfast Strategy: Arrive at SJO clueless? We can show you interesting ideas about "the road less traveled" over Nhi’s legendary bread pudding while Alamo delivers your 4WD directly to your breakfast table.

Whether you are a deep-space physicist or a biologist (we have a discount for both) taking a break from the stars, we have a casita waiting in our botanical gardens. Just remember: a sense of humor is mandatory for check-in.

Start your journey here: www.puravidahotel.com An example of a route you may not have thought of: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=14QhZonBw3vspo8U6sZ5THMSKp7_RLsyL&usp=sharing
Stay tuned for the first installment.

A Trip to Both Coasts

13/06/2026

Nature regenerating at Ostional

09/06/2026

Keep an eye for the one time next year you can meet all eight indigenous peoples . . . in Talamanca at the 4th Ancestral Games of the Indigenous Peoples of Costa Rica - mid April 2027, join us there

31/05/2026

7-Day Venturer Loop - but oh too short!

Berni here, your "reasonably sane" English innkeeper. Some guests ask me "what can I do with 7 days in Costa Rica?" My first response is "extend your trip of course!". Then they explain their project deadlines, little Johnnies prior engagements at school, their need to remain employed and a variety of other things I have little understanding of. So I decide to make them a map they hadn't thought of. Dannie told me later it worked marvelously. Though I put 3 destinations on this route, you can only do 2 of the 3 in 7 days.

Day 1: The Launchpad - Land at SJO and take our free taxi to the Pura Vida Hotel (Point A). Settle into your private casita and remember: check-in requires only your name, an email, and a mandatory sense of humor. If you hear a racket on the roof at 2 AM, don't panic- it’s probably a heavy mango - this is mango season.

Day 2: The First Breakfast Strategy - The real journey begins on our orchid terrace. While we serve up her legendary homemade bread pudding, Alamo delivers your 4WD directly to your breakfast table. We find the rental reps are much more agreeable when bribed with chocolate cake and coffee.

Day 3-4: The Cloud Forest Escape - Point your wheels toward Cloudbridge Nature Reserve (Point B). You are now officially a "Venturer" as the first stop on 70% of our OTHER guests is Arenal/La Fortuna. Expect a lovely remote private park with misty trails, hummingbirds and the entrance to our tallest mountain Chirripo.

Day 5: Drop down to Uvita (Point C) on the Ballena Coast. Endless beaches, whale watching starting soon (have your lodge find you a panga) and do dinner down the coast at our fave restaurant in the country - Exotica.

Day 6: The Pacific View - Begin the trek north along the coast through Dominical and Quepos - through palm oil plantations, you don't have time for Manuel Antonio so just a drive through and be super careful anywhere in Costa Rica about leaving any stuff in a rentacar - for lunches make sure you can see your car from the restaurant. For a less active trip . . . substitute Encantada Beach Cottages for Uvita https://www.puravidahotel.com/activities-and-tours/places-you-will-want-to-stay-longer.html - nice place, say hi to Tiffany.

Day 7: Full Circle - Return to the Pura Vida Hotel (Point D) for a final night and your early exit next morning with a breakfast to go. We’ll be waiting on the terrace to hear your tales of "problemitos" solved, how you successfully navigated past at least three of the country's 47 different San Rafaels and my suggestions for your next 2 week trip here :-).

View your roadmap here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1UshKnOGP00T61n3I2KUklMNFWcXwlZE&usp=sharing
Book your arrival (no credit card needed): www.puravidahotel.com

30/05/2026

On the subject of active volcanoes

People often ask me what started our Costa Rican journey. It was March 1983. Way before I was a tropical innkeeper, I was a "corporate dude" in a computer company based in California. I had flown in for a supposedly serious international meeting with twenty or so software managers from all over Latin America.

I arrived at the San Jose office, briefcase in hand and ready to hash out problems with big and small sticks, only to find the conference room completely empty.

"Where is everyone?" I asked.

The receptionist gave me a muddled look. "They're all gone," she declared. "They went to the Volcano!"

That was my first masterclass in the "natural order of things" here. In the neo-tropics, a meeting is merely a suggestion, but an active volcano is a "thing." I realized then that it might be important to adapt to to whatever this thing was.

If you're coming to stay in our casitas, don't expect a soul-crushing corporate itinerary. As your first stop in country we act like an air-lock in a spaceship. We readjust the temperature, the pressure and the environment. We might spend your first morning hashing out your route over Nhi’s legendary homemade bread pudding, or we might just decide the orchids look particularly splendid today and head into the garden instead.

And yes, Poas Volcano has been quite active the last three months. You can start your journey here with us, or choose somewhere more serious like the Holiday Inn Express.
Itinerary decisions for your first day in country: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1d-_kXzxqrR8sxcQNH6wZoN_PfpI&usp=sharing
Book your arrival casita (no credit card required): www.puravidahotel.com

Note: A sense of humor is mandatory for check-in.

22/05/2026

Many FB posts on various sites have foreigners trying to decide about a move to Costa Rica and thinking about it mechanically while missing possibly the key point. This is an easy quandary if taken from a particular perspective. A long-term love affair always starts the same way: first, you gotta fall in love.

After that comes some work - learning to live together, embracing each other's quirks, and building bridges across your differences while protecting your partner's heart. Decades later, that core love still has to be alive.

Having run a small hotel near SJO for many years, I’ve sat with countless gr**gos over breakfast who are weighing the big move. Worrying about this, griping about that and wondering if they are mad to consider the move. I always tell them the same thing: you can sort out the mechanics and logistics later. But if you don't fall in love with Costa Rica first, the relationship will never truly fulfill you.

22/05/2026

Interested in the road less traveled?

Try the "Both Coasts" Loop!

Hello future "Venturers"! Berni here, your "reasonably sane" formerly English innkeeper.

I’ve put together a series of maps developed over the years with other guests for those of you looking to find the soul of this country (here's just a small sampling: https://puravidahotel.com/location/maps.html)

If you’re the sort who can’t decide between a Caribbean jungle and a Pacific sunset and have 2 or 3 weeks, I’ve got the cure for your indecision. I’ve mapped out a grand loop that hits both coasts and the mountainous and some indigenous soul in between: [https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=14QhZonBw3vspo8U6sZ5THMSKp7_RLsyL&usp=sharing].

We start you off at the Pura Vida Hotel "Launchpad" (Point A). Don't just rush out! The secret to a cool first Costa Rican road trip is the First Breakfast Strategy. We sit you down on our orchid-covered terrace, we serve up something delicious, and then hash out the route while Alamo delivers your 4WD right to your breakfast table.

Here’s the "road less traveled" version of your itinerary:

The Caribbean Coast (Point B): Head east via the infamous Zurqui tunnel to the vibes of Physis Caribbean (https://physiscaribbean.net/) south of Puerto Viejo. During your stay don't miss out on a trip to the a "wise old man" of the jungle with our friend Gama (https://www.facebook.com/gamaliel.molinadiaz/) or the lovely park in Cahuita.

The Biologist’s Dream (Point C): A stop at CATIE. If you’re one of our "Special People" biologists (or just a deep-space physicist taking a break from the stars), this tropical research center is your version of Disneyland. Their groves of palms are extraordinary among other gems.

The Highland Heart (Points D & E): Wind through the historic Orosi Valley and up into the misty peaks of San Gerardo de Dota along the whimsically named "road of death". Pack a jacket; the hummingbirds don't mind the chill, but you might.

The Pacific Trail (Points F & G): Drop down via the Terraba River to the best restaurant in Costa Rica (Exotica hosted by the charming Maïté https://www.facebook.com/restaurantojochal/) then on to Uvita and the whales tale and on to the surf at Dominical and follow the coast up through Quepos and back "home" to the Pura Vida Hotel ready for your return the next day.

Don't miss the Cultural Soul (Point I): A cool detour to visit the Boruca people. This is where you’ll find one of the hearts of the country’s indigenous heritage and ancestral spirit. You could seek out the Brörán while you are there but you will never find them :-))

Remember, in this country, a GPS is just a source of "facts" that may make you miss the true gems. Bring your sense of humor (it's mandatory for check-in at the Pura Vida Hotel) and leave your galactic gargleblasters on your starship.

Book your arrival casita, and let's get your map marked up over coffee on your first morning here.