Interbus from Arenal to Nosara? and Monteverde or Arenal?

For Arenal, are you thinking of staying in La Fortuna? Nice town and good shopping but not much else.

The ride from the coast to Monteverde is beautiful. For Monteverde we stayed in St Elena. Very small quaint town. Loved the cloud forest

I would skip Monteverde, overrated in my book. Do a side trip from Arenal to Rincon, arranged at any hotel or lodge there, Stay on road to Tobocan Hot Springs, and not in La Fortuna.

The drive is lovely from Arenal to the river Tempsique, once over the bridge or across on the ferry, its ranch country and rather flat, then once past Nicoya, its gets hilly and pretty again as drop down to the coast.

Thank you for the replies; I feel better about the bus ride.

In the Arenal area, I was thinking of La Pradera cabins - not sure exactly where that is in relation to La Fortuna. I am not really into shopping, I figured we would use this mostly as a base - to see the volcano (if we're lucky) and falls & was hoping to go to Cano Negro. If we had to pick one, would Rincon be preferable to this?

I had planned to skip Monteverde (I think I read somewhere - maybe here from ticotim before - that it was overated) but now a co-worker says he loved it! Not sure.

From Nosara we were going to drive to Playa Ostional. Do you think there will be problems with the road at this time of year (August)? Read elsewhere of a river along the way being impassable and wondered if this was so.
Thanks again.

You should be able to make the drive from Nosora to Ostional, unless heavy rains, then you have to take longer route...people in town will know the conditions.

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<hr>In the Arenal area, I was thinking of La Pradera cabins - not sure exactly where that is in relation to La Fortuna. I am not really into shopping, I figured we would use this mostly as a base - to see the volcano (if we're lucky)<hr></blockquote>
I stayed at La Pradera last August. It's about a 5 min drive west of town and the property is right across the street from the volcano which dominates the view. The best time to get a good view of the volcano is early in the mornings before the clouds come in.

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<hr>From Nosara we were going to drive to Playa Ostional. Do you think there will be problems with the road at this time of year (August)? Read elsewhere of a river along the way being impassable and wondered if this was so.<hr></blockquote>
There is no bridge across the Rio Montana and you would need to ford the river. I was there last August and there was plenty of water in the river. didn't feel comfortable fording it in my Trios 4x4 and turned around