In the dry season it is also possible to take a regular sedan on the backroads. Sure you have to dri

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Before celebrity cruise line rates we even left home I had heard more than I wanted about all the horrible nightmares people came across while renting a car in Costa Rica. In fact, the travel guides pretty much all agreed, that as convenient as it might be to have a car, it can be just as much of a head ache.
It all starts by renting from home, which you should. They say if you don t, you end up with a worse deal, because they know you re there and are desperate. Speaking of deals, the car rental prices are a lot higher than here. A good 4-wheel drive can cost as much as $200-300 a day! Everyone recommended to rent a 4-wheel drive. When you finally payed for your full-coverage car rental and brought your documents to Costa Rica, presented them to the rental agency, they still gave you a hard time. Either they don t accept the full-coverage, and claim you only paid for the basic insurance. Or even say, that they don t have the car category celebrity cruise line rates you had rented and the only ones they have are upgrades. So you d have to pay the difference, and in the end still get exactly the size you had initially ordered from home.
Now that you have your car, come the scams, as you can read about them all over the internet. As you leave the car rental place, criminals follow you, knowing you have all your belongings with you. They pierce a tire, when you don t realize it, say at a red light, then follow you until you notice your flat tire. Then they want to be all helpful and gladly take all your belongings. The solution here is not to stop but keep going in the rims to the next place that fixes tires, even if it s an hour away.
If then you ever end up in an accident, the corrupt police will make sure the tourist pays all the damage, no matter what. Apparently there is a 50/50 chance they will treat you fair in other situations.
That said, Holger does like driving, has rented many cars in different countries, knew how to act with corrupt police officers, celebrity cruise line rates was not afraid of scams, and the independence a car offers outweighed the risks for us. So twice on our trip we rented a car.
First time we rented from home over the internet celebrity cruise line rates with Thrifty. Here they tried to give us a hard time with the full insurance coverage we had purchased over the internet. They claimed it wasn t valid with them. Refusing celebrity cruise line rates to pay a few hundred dollars more we took the risk of liability. We also filled up half a memory card with pictures of the scratches and dents on the car. Finally for $24 we rented two car seats, so old they must have been illegal in the US and Europe for over a decade and the buckles celebrity cruise line rates weren t working properly. We had no problems on the road at all.
In the dry season it is also possible to take a regular sedan on the backroads. Sure you have to drive slowly, celebrity cruise line rates not to break an axle, but at least it s more than $100 cheaper per day. (And to be honest it s not my car)
In the end we got a nice car at Toyota Rentals. The young guy helping us gave us the best deal he could get out of the system, and it truly was a fantastic deal. He even threw in two car seats and late drop off in another town (Liberia) for free.
In Carrara National Park we backed up into a concrete pole, totally our fault. Then later between Ciudad Quesada and La Fortuna we chose to take a short cut, which should have saved us over 20km. The road was nicely paved and brought us to a lovely village when inside the village the pavement suddenly disappered. We even asked a local man before we took that suspicious left turn, but he assured us that the dusty dirt road with those big rocks and bigger celebrity cruise line rates potholes would hit the main paved road in about a kilometer celebrity cruise line rates or two. Well, never believe a Costa Rican, when he gives you directions in distances. An hour later at max speeds of 5 km/h (3mph) we finally arrived at the next village and from there it was truly only about 5 more minutes to the main road. Thank goodness, the car didn t break down or loose any parts on that road, which really should only be travelled on by horse back.