Bird-Watching Tour from San Jose

After early morning hotel pickup in San Jose, take a pleasant drive northeast and arrive less than an hour later at Rainforest Adventures Costa Rica Atlantic, an ecotourism reserve spanning 1,174 acres (475 hectares) of waterfalls, rivers and dense tropical forest.

During your bird-watching journey, you'll walk a total of 3 miles (5 km) on paved paths and flat dirt trails located in the Caribbean foothills, as well as primary and secondary tropical rainforests. Set up your tripod on the pavement, and have fun checking off the different birds you see from a list provided by your naturalist guide.

Follow your guide across a hanging bridge over Molinete River, where kingfishers usually are found snapping prey into their long, dagger-like beaks.

Then board an aerial tram and take a peaceful glide through the canopy. During this hour-long ride in an open-air gondola, see a bonanza of birdlife, with your guide explaining what you see along the way. The tram stops every so often to give you optimal opportunity to study birds and snap pictures. See if you can make out the resplendent plumes of a trogon, often missed as it usually perches very still in the mid-canopy.

Disembark deep in the rainforest and continue with your guide on a trail to an overlook point, where you’ll take a break and enjoy a box breakfast. (Breakfast typically includes rice and beans, scrambled eggs, sausages, bread, cereal, fresh fruit, juice, coffee or tea.)

Afterward, your guide takes you down a trail to catch more birds in their habitat, which might include a blue-crowned motmot, with its telltale bare feather shaft, and the keel-billed toucan with its multicolored beak. Perhaps you’ll hear parakeets and macaws before seeing them.

Continue your aviary adventure with your guide on another path toward the reserve’s observation center, a spectacular site with plants that attract hummingbirds. Maybe the lovely blue-gray tanager will flutter into view.

After a marvelous day of bird-watching, enjoy transport back to your San Jose hotel.

Note: Click on the 'View additional info' below to ensure your hotel is included in the pickup and drop-off zone.