Manuel Antonio
Costa Rica's smallest national park is its most visited, and it exists because local people fought foreign landowners for the right to reach the beach. A sand isthmus gives it two beaches back to back.
Manuel Antonio in a nutshell
Manuel Antonio: what to expect
Our travellers have planned 87,000+ stops in Costa Rica on Stippl. That is where the numbers here come from.
Manuel Antonio is the country's smallest national park and its most visited, and it puts rainforest and beach in the same morning. Eight or nine kilometres of trail hold over a hundred mammal species and a hundred and eighty birds, including three of Costa Rica's four monkeys and both sloths. Manuel Antonio Beach sits inside the park in a protected cove and is the best swimming here. Espadilla Sur is longer, emptier and has the stronger currents, and Playa Biesanz is ten minutes through jungle to the sunset.
Manuel Antonio is the first place in Costa Rica travellers treat as a holiday rather than a stop. Its stays spread wider than anywhere else in the country, with the longest tail of five-night visits, where most Costa Rican destinations sit rigidly on two nights or three. It also anti-correlates with the whole Guanacaste coast: the country has two beach circuits and travellers pick one.
Hire a guide with a scope for the morning walk, and stay 2 nights. Without one you will walk past almost everything, which every account agrees on. Uvita is the next beach down and the strongest pairing in the country, so the coast road south is the natural continuation. Skip Manuel Antonio if you want solitude, because it is the busiest park in Costa Rica and the daily cap only softens that.
À qui Manuel Antonio s'adresse
Wildlife without effort
Sources are consistent that this is the easiest place in Costa Rica to see a lot in one morning
Families.
Flat trails, a short visit, beaches inside the park
Rainforest and beach at once
which is the park's actual selling point
Beach travellers
with the caveat that the best swimming is inside the park and the public beach outside it is better for surfing
Not for a day trip.
A 2.9% zero-night share, people come here to stay
Quand partir pour Manuel Antonio
Dry season
December–March
28–128 mm a month, and the only genuinely dry stretch measured at any Costa Rican destination we cover.
Green season
May–November
353–601 mm, seventeen to twenty-two rain days, and October is the wettest month in the country.
The booking peak
December–March
35.3% of trip starts
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Things to do in Manuel Antonio
Photo by Jake Marsee via PexelsA guided wildlife walk in the park.
Two to three hours on the Sendero Principal, and every source says the same thing: without a guide and a scope you will walk past almost everything. Guides photograph the animals through the scope with your phone
Manuel Antonio Beach
inside the park, in a protected cove, the best swimming here
Playa Espadilla Sur
the longer beach on the other side of the tombolo. Bigger, emptier and with stronger currents
Playa Las Gemelas
a small cove beach 10–15 minutes' walk beyond the park restaurant
Sendero Miradores
at the back of the park, where one source says the crowds thin out and the wildlife odds improve
Les quartiers de Manuel Antonio
Quepos
budget
The working town 7 km north: the bus station, the marina, the supermarket and the cheapest beds. Not a beach town
The marina and the bus connections, 7 km north of the park gate.
The park road (Route 618)
first-timers, views
The 7 km of hillside between Quepos and the park entrance, lined with hotels looking out over the Pacific. Where most visitors stay, and where the views are
Hillside hotels with Pacific views, and some let you walk into the park.
Playa Espadilla Norte
beach days
The public beach at the bottom of the road, just outside the park gate: surf schools, sun loungers, beach restaurants
The free public beach outside the gate, with beginner surf schools on it.
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Où loger à Manuel Antonio
The park road is where the hotels are, on the hillside with Pacific views, and it is where most visitors stay
Quepos
The working town 7 km north: the bus station, the marina, the supermarket and the cheapest beds. Not a beach town
The park road (Route 618)
The 7 km of hillside between Quepos and the park entrance, lined with hotels looking out over the Pacific. Where most visitors stay, and where the views are
Playa Espadilla Norte
The public beach at the bottom of the road, just outside the park gate: surf schools, sun loungers, beach restaurants
Que manger à Manuel Antonio
National plate of rice, beans, salad, plantain and a protein
Rice and beans fried together, the standard breakfast
A Thai restaurant on the park road
The other named restaurant in town
The one sit-down restaurant inside the park; reported closed by one source
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Manuel Antonio customs and what not to do
The park was won locally
a community victory, not a government gift. It was created in 1972 after local pressure against foreign landowners who had blocked access to the beaches
Do not feed the wildlife
nor leave food unattended. The food ban exists because visitors fed monkeys and left litter
Pura vida
is used as greeting, thanks and goodbye
Budget quotidien à Manuel Antonio
Budget
≈€47–75
Dorm bed or basic cabina in Quepos, sodas for most meals, public buses with the occasional shuttle, one paid park every other day, free beaches
Mid-range
≈€105–170
Park-road hotel with a Pacific view, a share of a rental car with its mandatory insurance, a guided wildlife walk and restaurant dinners
High-end
≈€300+
Hillside resort or signature lodge, private guides, private transfers and the higher-end tour operators
Track what you actually spend
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Anecdotes sur Manuel Antonio
The smallest national park in Costa Rica and the most visited protected area in the country: the authority says so itself
It exists because local people fought foreign landowners for beach access, and became a park in 1972
The park holds a 14-hectare lagoon, mangrove and offshore islands alongside the forest and beaches
Three of Costa Rica's four monkey species live here
El Tómbolo: the sand isthmus joining Cathedral Point to the mainland, is what gives the park its two back-to-back beaches
The one Costa Rican stop people stretch. Only 34.1% of stays sit on the modal two nights, against Monteverde's 45.6%, the template loosens at the beach
Conseils locaux pour Manuel Antonio
No official car park
There is no official car park at the entrance. Signs on Route 618 advertising "official parking", and men in hi-vis vests with official-looking badges, are private operators. Chalo Parking is the one to use, cash only, around ₡5,000 / €8.50
Stay near the gate
Staying near the park entrance, or booking a tour with transfers, removes the parking problem altogether
Uvita is the next stop
An hour down an easy coast road, and the destination Manuel Antonio pairs with more than any other on Stippl
Fake staff work the entrance
People in official-looking badges sell tickets and tours at the gate. Tickets exist only on the SINAC site. Walk past them
The manchineel tree
The manzanillo (manchineel) tree is poisonous and grows on Playa Espadilla Sur. Do not sit or shelter under one
Swim in the cove
Swim at Manuel Antonio Beach rather than Espadilla Sur. The cove is protected; the open beach has currents
Manuel Antonio questions, answered
Book the ticket first and pick a day that is not a Tuesday, when the park closes. Tickets are sold on the national parks site only, in advance, with a passport number per visitor. Travellers planning Manuel Antonio on Stippl book about 75 days out, so put the park morning into Stippl early and leave the beach for the afternoon.
Two nights. Manuel Antonio gets 2 nights in the trips people plan on Stippl, which is a park morning, a beach afternoon and a travel day at each end. The park itself is half a day; the beaches outside it are what fills the rest.
It is the busiest small park in the country and carries 10.1% of everything planned in Costa Rica on Stippl. The crowd is real, and it is also why the wildlife is so easy to see here. Arrive at opening, walk the far trails first, and it thins out fast.
For wildlife, effectively yes. The sloths, the owls and the snakes are invisible without a scope and a trained eye, and the guides work the same short trails all day long. Hire one at the entrance, or walk close enough behind a group to hear the commentary, which plenty of people do.
You can swim: the beach inside the park is the sheltered one, and Espadilla Sur next to it has currents that are not. Food is another matter. Bags are checked at the gate and only water gets through, because of the monkeys and the raccoons, who are extremely practised at this.
Quepos for a lower price and the bus connections, the park road for the views and for being able to walk to the gate. The road is one steep hill between the two with the restaurants strung along it, and a taxi from end to end takes about ten minutes.
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