Hello, beautiful people! I am going to share with you all how we traveled to Costa Rica for less than $1000. Yes, you heard correctly! My husband and I traveled to an international country for less than $1000. I told you all I am all for traveling on a budget. I want to enjoy new things and new experiences, not spend a bunch of money trying to travel above my means. So let’s talk about how we did it and how you can too!
My husband and I only travel once (maybe twice) a year as a couple. We usually go when our anniversary comes around to celebrate another year together. We’ve traveled to Mexico, Annapolis (which is local, but was nice) Niagara Falls, Toronto, and this year Costa Rica. Traveling to Costa Rica was never on my mind. I was focused on others things in my life (my pregnancy #ripbabywise, planning my high school reunion and etc.) Once I lost my baby, I was down for a while but I decided I wanted to get up and live my life because life is so short and unpredictable at times.
I did a blog post here about ways to travel on a budget. I mentioned in there that we switched our credit card to an airline card. To be honest, I am not a fan of credit cards. But with us having one, I wanted us to get rewarded for using it in some way so why not get rewarded for traveling for spending money! Every so often, our airline would have one-way flight specials starting at $59. When I get notifications about that, I always look to see what specials they have for flying out of Baltimore just in case we want to get away for whatever reason. Not to mention, they started flying out to more countries in Central America and the Carribean for a great price! #wonthedoit.
When I saw that it was cheaper to fly to Costa Rica in the month of May than any other places in the US, I immediately told my husband we are going out of the country and he agreed to go! We used part of our saved up points (and still had points left over), paid the international fees and we were good to go!
A bonus about going during the time that we did instead of in July was that it was the start of their rainy season. Granted, it rained a lot during our trip. But it was so much cheaper and we woke up early enough to do everything before the rain came down.
From that point, I looked up hotels and resorts to stay at. I can always count on Groupon and LivingSocial to come through. We found a great deal on a two-night stay in one of their superior bungalows in La Fortuna with a view of the Arenal Volcano for $263. It came with daily breakfast, wifi, use of the hot spring pools, volcanic mud bath and etc. It also came with two daily activities (tubing, horseback riding, canopy and etc.) We decided since we were flying into San Jose, we would stay one night in San Jose then drive 2 hours and 45 minutes to the mountains the next day (I will do a separate post on our adventures).
We stayed at the Sheraton in San Jose and it was absolutely beautiful!! For one night was $89. I was shocked because I know of a few Sheratons that are $150 a night!
Another thing I forgot to mention, we purchased a rental car. It would’ve been nice to take a shuttle but we wanted to explore things on our own and on our own time. The only downfall was that when I reserved the rental car online, I booked it for $20. Yes, Y’all $20…so I thought. When we went to pick up the car, it was mandatory to get insurance just in case anything happened. I was a little mad about that extra expense, but with the way people were driving there, I’m glad we did just in case something was to happen hahaa!
With our flights, hotel/resort stay, car, excursions, random adventures, food and souvenirs, this trip cost around $850 for the both of us. That is not bad for an international trip. When people see others going out of the country, I’m sure they assume that they must’ve paid $3000+ for that. But there are plenty of affordable ways to travel internationally for a really good price. You have to know when to go and where to score great deals so that you aren’t spending more than you need.
I really hope this inspires you all to get out of your comfort zone and travel. There is so much out here to see and you don’t want miss out. I know everything happens for a reason but I’m so glad we went on this trip. It was soooo fun yet different. We were so used to going to beaches, islands or places we were familiar with. I’ve never been to a rainforest or seen a volcano in my life. I never thought I would ever but God made a way for us. If he did it for us, he will definitely do it for you! I vlogged part of our trip on my channel so feel free to check out day one here!
Stay tuned for more posts about our trip! 🙂