The OLTRE Guide: Costa Rica

Chasing crocodiles, waterfalls, coffee and beaches: the second coming of Costa Rica is here.

Costa Rica

Kevin Quiros plants his tripod in the sand and aims its scope across the Heineken-green inlet at a tapered, oblong shadow peeking out of the mangroves. "We have three types of crocodiles in the Palmares Preserve," he says. The preserve is 250 acres of tumbling valleys, brackish swamps and sun-scorched forest inhabited mostly by spider monkeys, jaguars and canela hummingbirds (named for the Spanish word for cinnamon).

Quiros is a native of this province, Guanacaste, but even for an expert on the area's ecology, locating the stealthy croc can be a challenge. The shape he's isolated in his scope just now turns out to be the most common variety, "a log-odile," Quiros says with a laugh. It's just a log. "There's also the rock-odile." The third type, the real ones, remain elusive today.

The Ballena Estate at Four Seasons Resort Peninsula Papagayo.

I'll contend there's a fourth species that's migrated to Costa Rica's Pacific provinces in recent years: the jog-odile. American in origin, this breed is quite active, with a discerning palate and (when not jogging in nature) can be found sheltering in the region's increasingly luxurious and expanding hotel stock. I encounter one in the middle of a guided sound bath at the new Wellness Shala, an open-air mountaintop pavilion at the Four Seasons Resort Peninsula Papagayo, a 198-room estate pinched between two exquisite beaches outside the Palmares Preserve. I tiptoe along the Shala's perimeter, which overlooks a turquoise-banded bend in the coastline, so as not to disturb the meditating visitor. The roof, whose undulating silhouette and striated bamboo gills give it the look of a giant chanterelle mushroom, captures the sound and reflects it back in a mesmerizing echo.

Four Seasons' main pool shimmers in an exuberant grove of red ginger and birds-of-paradise. It's a bubbly, family-friendly scene, but there's also a separate adults-only pool flanked by cabanas overlooking Playa Virador. I spend a long, languid day here, consuming the jog-odile diet of poufy, za'atar-dusted flatbread and zero-proof hibiscus spritzes, alternating between the cool water and baking in the sun - a reptile in full repose.

Ámbar treehouse restaurant at Nekajui Peninsula Papagayo, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve

Outdoor dining at ORIGINS

Spa pool at Hacienda AltaGracia, Auberge Collection

While the newly (and thoroughly) revamped Four Seasons Resort Peninsula Papagayo dates to 2004 as the first luxury habitat of Papagayo (the government-owned resort development), Costa Rica's hotel ecosystem has been growing fast: Auberge, Andaz, Nayara, ORIGINS, W. There's an Aman on the way, plus the first NIHI outside Indonesia. In the span of three months last year, Waldorf Astoria Punta Cacique, a hillside stunner, and Nekajui Peninsula Papagayo, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, added nearly 300 rooms with thousand-dollar nightly rates to the region.

The pools at Waldorf Astoria Punta Cacique

At the latter, my assigned manzu ("friend" in native Chorotegan; "butler" in Ritz-Carlton parlance) organizes my forest hike with Quiros, coordinates laundry service and sends daily tide reports via WhatsApp. The tranquil compound, perched over a shaggy ravine and connected to Playa Pochote by a nifty funicular, occupies more curious joggers and hikers with lushly landscaped trails, clandestine beach caves, and a wooden suspension bridge slung cinematically across the gorge. A trio of tented treehouse accommodations and the Nimbu Spa - with the largest outdoor hydrotherapy pool in Central America - await across the bridge. I drift out of my spa cabin smelling like citrusy juanilama, a native medicinal herb, to find that colossal pool empty, as if no one knows it's even there.

Your travel advisor can arrange a detailed Costa Rica itinerary as well as secure extra perks, including resort credits and complimentary daily breakfast, at these Internova CURATED and SELECT resorts.

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This article originally appeared in OLTRE Volume 13 Spring 2026, written by Adam Erace.