Animal Spotting

Where and when to spot which animal

Ten tips for animal spotting

It is possible to observe a lot of different species of animals within a short time. Most tourists who are travelling to Costa Rica come to this country in the expectation to see wildlife: sloth’s, macaws, quetzals, monkeys, armadillo’s…
These expectations are fed by beautiful pictures in travel guides and brochures that give an idea of Costa Rica if it is a zoo, but without cages. Of course it is not like that.

Animals in the free nature do have the bad habit to try to escape people instead of approximating them. Most animals have a perfect camouflage (try to spot a sloth!) and furthermore, a lot are only active at night. In the rainforests an unbelievable variety of animals live: the thickness of the vegetation and the shadows make it very difficult to observe birds and other wildlife that live within.

However, few people who come to Costa Rica with the purpose to see exotic animals will be disappointed after their visit to this country. In contrary: they will be astonished by the richness of nature they will encounter. But it is better to be warned for expectations too high, because it is no matter forcing nature.

We have ten tips that will help you to encounter animals in Costa Rica.

And also we made an overview of the places where and best periods in the year when it is possible to see some ‘popular’ species of animals. See the ‘read further’ section.