Our first trip to central America was as part of a guided tour organised by Tropical Birding and advertised as their Costa Rica: The Introtour, which was a 10 day birding trip around some of the major birding sites in the country. The tour is still offered today in basically the same format and is obviously popular amongst birders, especially those from North America since Costa Rica is only a short flight from the USA.
When crossing a number of time zones for a birding trip we like to have a few days at the location to adjust before the tour proper starts, we therefore flew out to Costa Rica on 11 February for the tour starting 3 days later. We flew with United Airlines from London to San Jose with a change in Houston, arriving at 9 PM for a transfer to the Hotel Robledal.
As the above maps shows, the tour encompassed a lot of the country from the high interior to the western Pacific coast. The links below connect to reports on the birds and other wildlife we saw in the various parts of the country.
We really enjoyed this tour, which provided an excellent introduction to the birds of Central America. The accommodation was good and we had a knowledgeable and experienced guide in Cameron Cox. We would highly recommend it to anyone interested in exploring this fascinating country and its remarkable wildlife.