Serene Sleeping: My Favorite Eco-Lodges for a Peaceful Night
After a few days of zipline-volcano-waterfall-volcano, even the most adventurous traveler needs a deep night of sleep in the jungle. These are the lodges I recommend most often when guests ask me where they should slow down.
Lapa Rios (Osa Peninsula)
Open-air bungalows on a cliff over the Pacific. You'll wake up with scarlet macaws flying past your bed and toucans calling from the cecropia trees. The Osa Peninsula is the most biodiverse place on Earth per square kilometer — National Geographic's words, not mine.
Lapa Rios is high-end and worth it once in your life. Solar power, rainwater catchment, employs almost exclusively locals from the surrounding villages. The hot-water outdoor showers might be my favorite thing in any hotel I've ever stayed in.
El Silencio Lodge (Bajos del Toro)
Cloud forest cabins with private hot tubs on the deck. The best stargazing of any place I know in Costa Rica — you're at 1,800 meters, away from any town lights, and on clear nights the Milky Way is right there.
The on-site restaurant grows most of its produce in the gardens you walked past on the way to your cabin. Their breakfast is genuinely the best in the country.
Pacuare Lodge (Pacuare River)
Only reachable by whitewater raft. You raft in on day one, sleep in jungle cabins with no electricity (oil lamps and candles), and raft out on day three. There is no wifi, no phone signal, and after the second night you stop missing them.
Honeymoon couples love this one. So do solo travelers who need a real reset.
Our family farm casitas (Guanacaste)
Simple wooden cabins on my family's land near the Tenorio area. Howler monkeys for an alarm clock and my tía's gallo pinto for breakfast. Hammocks on every porch. A small swimming hole down the path.
This is included in several of my multi-day tour packages and is, to be honest, the place that makes the strongest impression on most of my guests. Nothing fancy — just deeply, genuinely peaceful.
How to choose
If you only have two nights for a slow-down, pick El Silencio. If you have three and want adventure built in, Pacuare. For your honeymoon or a once-in-a-lifetime week, Lapa Rios. For a real local experience and the warmest welcome you'll ever get, book with me and stay at the farm.
