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Summary: Promotes eco travel and outdoor adventures
Review: Also newly updated is Beatrice Blake and Anne Becher's New Key To Costa Rica, which promotes eco travel and outdoor adventures. Opinionated reviews cover both historic sites and outdoor adventure journeys, making for an absorbing and revealing guide.
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Summary: This was my Bible in Costa Rica!
Review: Although my review refers to an earlier edition, I'm sure subsequent editions are just as good. When I lived in Costa Rica for a year in 1991, this book was my constant companion for useful information in a format that was really user-friendly. I've used it on seven or eight visits to the country. I really deserve to get myself a new one! I highly recommend it.
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Summary: BEST TRAVEL BOOK
Review: As a president and founder of the Bed and Breakfast Asoociation and Central Reservation System for B & B's in Costa Rica for the past 10 years, I highly recommend "The New Key to Costa Rica". The information provided is invaluable. Both of the authors have lived and travelled extensively for over 14 years in Costa Rica. Readers couldn't possibly find a better updated travel book written, by the book's authors who have experienced and continue to travel this wonderful country first hand.
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Summary: BEST TRAVEL BOOK
Review: As a president and founder of the Bed and Breakfast Asoociation and Central Reservation System for B & B's in Costa Rica for the past 10 years, I highly recommend "The New Key to Costa Rica". The information provided is invaluable. Both of the authors have lived and travelled extensively for over 14 years in Costa Rica. Readers couldn't possibly find a better updated travel book written, by the book's authors who have experienced and continue to travel this wonderful country first hand.
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Summary: Great EcoTourism guide
Review: Great Family guide. We traveled and volunteered for six weeks with a 12 and 14 year old, and found the book invaluable. Everything was accurate and helped use get around on a limited budget. Bus schedules and directions were great. Since we got back, we have compared it to several other books for places we stayed, no other book compared. It has great reviews of the national parks and the country Map includes the National Parks.
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Summary: Great Book!
Review: Hi, I am working at ILISA, Spanish Language Institute in San Jose, Costa Rica and I just want to let you know that this book helps our students a lot by making travel plans and by getting their way around in Costa Rica. Thanks!
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Summary: Not for the typical vacationer
Review: I am disappointed with this book.I reread it and customer reviews after returning from Costa Rica. I think this book is factually incorrect, but it fails to give first time travelers to CR the flavor of the country and the tools to build a satisfying and comfortable vacation. This book was written by long time North American residents of CR and functions more as a reference book for other english speaking residents of CR than as a tool for organizing a 2 week vacation. I must say that I do NOT consider CR a "must see" country. It does not have a distinctive architecture, history, culture (literature, arts, folk crafts, etc). Its capital city, San Jose, is squalid and dangerous. Its smaller towns (I visited Guanacasta) are reached by narrow, hot, crowded, dusty and unpaved road. Locals are poor and drink beer as a pasttime. Nevertheless I've seen many SUV's fording rivers with surf boards and other play things. Although its not apparent to the novice, CR is (by most accounts) an ecologists/biologists/geologists playground. To really enjoy CR the vacationer needs to know why they are visiting the country and make specific plans to meet their goals. Do not rely on serendipitious discovery to fill the core of your vacation. If you a surfer, birder, diver, sailor, hiker etc than plan to make a bee line for those resorts/ persons who can help you enjoy these activities. Appreciating local culture should be a secondary activity. (Go for a 2 tank dive in the morning and have lunch in town with locals in the PM). The book should be organized to help the vacationer reach places safely, confortably and mostly important, satisfy their interests. As it is, the book is a reference for the ex-patriot, long term exchange student and backpacker, not the typical traveler.
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Summary: Great book, but has one poor reference
Review: I traveled to Costa Rica for a study abroad program with my college, and I found The New Key to Costa Rica to be the perfect guide book. I loved all of the recomendations the book offered while I was in Costa Rica: places to visit, places to eat, places to stay, etc. So, when I planned to return to Costa Rica I consulted the book again. However, I do not suggest using Americas Tours and Travel to buy tickets to Costa Rica, as the book suggested. I did, and I regret it. This is my only complaint about the book. Otherwise, it is the best that can be offered.
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Summary: Excellence, Absolute Best Travel Book
Review: I used a previous edition of this book as a guide when I was an exchange student in Costa Rica. This book contained everything that I needed. I spoke little Spanish in the beginning of my stay, and this book helped me to travel the country with easy. It contains information about everything from restaurants to travel to ecological information. Prior to using the New Key, I had never used a travel book. After using it, I wanted to buy a travel guide for every trip. Though I have now used several travel books, unfortunately, I have never found another book that is so comprehensive and useful as the New Key. This book explains a lot of inside information that one needs to know and hotel and restaurant tips. I highly recommend it. I only wish the makers of the New Key would do New Key books for other places,especially other Central American countries. I would buy any New Key book even if it were over my own home city so that I could let my visitors use it. I would buy the full set without hesitation. My few words can hardly do justice to this excellent book. If there were a nobel prize for travel books, this book would have won it. If you are taking a trip to Costa Rica, buy it!
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Summary: where to find ecological treasures
Review: So few "travel" books so successfully entice the traveler with Costa Rica's ecological treasures as this guide and a very luxurious book "The Last Country The Gods Made." The two are sort of the First and Last word on the country! The New Key provides the times, directions and menus, while in The Last Country you won't find a word about the accomodations or the best surfer bar. About 60% of The New Key is devoted to getting you to the wildlife, and about half of The Last Country's 152 slick pages explain why you want to see it! And see it all you will, with these two treasures!
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