costa rica to nicaragua/el salvador

You have one route via bus, and one other choice, fly from san jose.

We chicken bused our way across the entire region, Panama City to the Yucatan with 2 little kids. You don;t really have a choice of route so much as choice of bus. You can go ticabus from San Jose to Granada, then nicabus to El Salvador (there's another bus company but I can't remember the name). OR you can travel in spurts by chicken bus, making your way more slowly to l Salvador.

Good luck
Janet

There are no chicken busses in Costa Rica, and not in Nicaragua for the most part, a chicken Bus to me is one packed to the gills, and has live farm animals on board, which does not happen in CR or Nica unless your really in a remote town and its the only way to the markets for a local.

The busses in CR are modern overall, all the main routes mainly have Mercedes, Volvo or Saab busses, the small routes between towns, the local bus, will be older, in Nicaragua, the average bus is a old school bus, but not on main routes, they are nicer and similar to CR.

If you look at a map, you only have one route basically, you can enter CR from Panama on the Caribe side. Local busses operate between all the main towns as well. Same applies to the Pan Am 1. All roads, and main busses tend to go in.out or end in the Capitols.

What is your timeframe? Do you want to get there fast -- or take time and visit the areas?

Quickest: fly as Tim says

Quick: take a long-haul and/or luxury bus, like Tica Bus. THere are some that go from Big City to Big City with very few stops in between (i.e. San Jose, Costa Rica to Managua, Nicaragua. or from Managua to San Salvador). Great for getting you there quickly and cheaply. But you end up missing the best parts of a country (i.e. anything but the capital!)

Slow & Steady: take a combination of local buses (that stop and pick up any bystander on the road) or other short-haul buses. This is what we did for the most part.