<< 1 >>
Rating: 
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
Summary: Excellence, Absolute 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.
Rating: 
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating: 
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!
Rating:
Summary: best one yet
Review: This is the best book we've found so far. We used it to plan our trip, id hotels that we wanted to stay at, determine where we wanted to go, etc. We go on the trip in November and will definitely be taking this with us but in terms of preparation it was a must have for us
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointed - there are much better other guides
Review: We just returned from Costa Rica where we used this book. We were disappointed at the incorrect and misleading comments the author makes throughout the book. For example, the author opens the description of Monteverde by describing the drive as "through deforested, eroded pastures." I wonder where the author gets her information as the climate, soils, and environment at Monteverde is what creates the special cloud forest. This same enviroment does not exist at the lower enviroment. The route up does pass through small communities and family farms. The author demonstrates her lack of botany or plant ecology background. In addition to inaccurate description of the environment, we found the information in the book dated. We preferred to use the lonely planet and frommers guides.
<< 1 >>
| 
