Why Costa Rica Is The Ideal Escape For Burned-Out Travelers, According To Rick Steves

TV personality Rick Steves can tell you where to find the best antipasti in Verona. He can pinpoint the most scenic train route in Germany. He knows exactly what to see and do in Paris, tailoring to the number of days you can spend there. Long before the first episode of "Rick Steves' Europe" premiered on PBS in 2000, the writer and presenter already knew the continent backward and forward, and his general top tier travel tips are worth their weight in gold. Steves lives in Washington but is reputed to have spent more than 100 days each year traveling in Europe since his first visit in 1973.

That said, even Rick Steves needs to go on a regular old vacation. No camera crew. No notebooks. Just some normal-traveling R&R in a relaxing location. So where does Steves go when he's not anchoring the longest-running travel series on public television? Costa Rica!

"When I travel in Europe, I'm working," wrote Steves in a 2009 blog post on his website. "So when I take a vacation, I like to go elsewhere." His post chronicles an eight-day expedition to the small Central American nation, where he zip lined, enjoyed a massage, and successfully stood up on a surfboard. Like millions of other travelers before him, Steves followed his bliss to Costa Rica, where locals routinely exclaim "Pura vida!" (or "pure life"). "My son marveled at how he hadn't held a cell phone in his hand for a week," he writes. "I reflected on how travel refreshes our bodies, minds and souls."

Costa Rica is one of the most coveted tourist destinations in the world, and it's easy to see why seasoned travelers like Rick Steves enjoy it so much: The tropical nation has warm-to-hot weather year-round, ample beaches, and a pioneering ecotourism scene. The local people — known as Ticos and Ticas — have a long tradition of peaceful living, and the government officially disbanded its military in 1949. About half the land is covered by rainforest, much of it untouched by human saws. With its agrarian roots and vast national parks, Costa Rica aims to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

Costa Rica has two international airports: Juan Santamaría International (SJO) is located outside the nation's capital, San José, and Liberia International (LIR) is smaller but provides easy access to the beaches and resorts of Guanacaste, the fun-forward northwestern state. The dry season, which lasts from roughly December to April, happens to coincide with the coldest months of a North American winter, allowing you to enjoy day after day of sunshine on the Pacific coast and in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. The rainy season is also lovely, with verdant forests and active wildlife, not to mention thinner crowds and generally lower prices. The country is less than half the size of Pennsylvania, yet the mountainous terrain, active volcanoes, twisting jungle roads, and wildly diverse micro-climates make it seem far larger. Here's how to plan a laid-back vacation experience in this dynamic landscape.

If you love wildlife, Costa Rica is a nationwide menagerie of sloths, tapirs, capuchin monkeys, leafcutter ants, toucans, macaws, and wild cats — just as a start. The nation's unique location between two continents has made it a migratory bottleneck for different species; today, Costa Rica contains 5% of the world's total biodiversity within its modest borders. The local economy relies heavily on ecotourism, and major towns are bursting with night hikes, canopy tours, scuba dives, kayak excursions, and rappels into canyons. For sporty travelers, Costa Rica is an interactive and three-dimensional experience; for amateur zoologists, eco-tours are a sustainable and low-impact way to celebrate native species.

Some things have changed in Costa Rica since Rick Steves wrote his post in 2009: Many towns have been built up considerably, and travel is more competitive and expensive than it used to be. At the same time, internet connectivity is stronger, which has attracted many digital nomads, and roadways have improved, making it easier to zip from cloud forest to beach town to coffee farm in a standard rental car. If this bounty of excitement is giving you decision paralysis, here is our list of the best things to do in Costa Rica.