La Reserva Bosque Nuboso Santa Elena

Well maintained trails. We did the yellow loop counterclockwise and added the Youth Challenge trail for the mirador tower for about 3 miles and 600’. There were few stairs, mostly well-graded slopes and switchbacks. The few steps were mostly low-rise and well spaced. Near the beginning of the dry season the trail had no sloppy mud. The folks at the reception were helpful and spoke good English. Early afternoon on a sunny but windy Sunday we encountered maybe 10 other people on our walk. Sadly, we lose a star because we didn’t see any wildlife except a pretty little yellow breasted songbird and a single black beetle. We were walking slowly and quietly, heads on the swivel. Nada. The wind was blowing a gale so they must’ve been hunkered down. Nothing was blooming in the small orchid garden behind the ticket office. There were several miles of crappy dirt road getting there. The tall steel observation platform offered a fairly mundane view of the area with Volcan Arenal hiding behind the clouds.

Beautiful place. We chose to do a tour, and wish we just walked around ourselves. Even in the tour we didn’t see any critters, except a tarantula. Got interesting info about area, but we would have seen more of park on our own. We could have stayed, but had something else planned after 2 hour tour.

On the continental divide between the Pacific and Carribean it offers tremendous views in both directions. There are several trails and a basic but good gift shop. Our guided tour introduced us to the cloud forest and it's ecology.

Very nice visit in a cloud forest. Felt more real, less developed. Yet trails are maintained and easy to navigate. Less touristy than other places in the area.

Lovely rainforest with tarantulas, bats, birds, frogs, and amazing otherworldly dense rainforest scenery. Several sections of our hike felt like we were on the movie set of Avatar. It was truly incredible. We booked a private guide for a family of four, two adults and two children, directly with Santa Elena Park by contacting them through WhatsApp. The website they have online is very outdated and directs visitors to WhatsApp, but please do not let that dissuade you from visiting this park. We paid $185 for a 3-hour private guided tour just for our family, and it was one of the cheapest things we did in Costa Rica compared to other parks and tour operators. A private guided tour here for 3 hours cost us far less than an unguided tour plus a sloth habitat visit we booked next door at a private park yesterday. All of the proceeds from this government-owned park goes to a local high school, and we really appreciated that as well. We booked a shuttle from the same WhatsApp number of Santa Elena, and the shuttle picked us up and dropped us off at our hotel for $8 per person roundtrip. Our guide Walter was extremely knowledgeable and identified small wildlife that we would have been unable to spot on our own. Our guide also took plenty of photos and videos for us using his scope. If you are in this area, I would highly recommend this park for an otherworldly dense rainforest experience. There were very few tourists in this park and the whole experience was magical.

Book your tickets in advance and go with a guide. We reached late for guided tour in english so did the brown loop (kids trail) and green loop (youth trail). A very different experience with misty clouds surrounding lush green vegetation. We saw some birds but no other wild life. The observation deck in the green loop gives a 360 degree view of the cloud forest.

Gorgeous, well maintained trails! Seriously better sign posted than some of US national park trails we’ve been on. A good first day hiking outing to warm you up for more challenging hikes (e.g. El Tigre waterfall, another I’d highly recommend). We did the blue trail, took about 1.5 hrs, there was a tree fallen right at the half way point but it didn’t take long to go around and take the shortcut through. We didn’t pay to enter, had lovely staff out front to answer questions and recommend trails. Nature abounds, we didn’t see many animals but I’m sure a guide would be able to point plenty out. Also a decent size parking lot if you drive!

It was so peaceful and beautiful here. We came on a rare sunny day. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and taught us a lot about the forest and its inhabitants.