If you're planning a trip that includes Manuel Antonio — and a lot of first-time visitors' itineraries do — there's a very good chance every route Google Maps and every shuttle company suggests you takes the same road: down through the Central Valley and onto the coastal highway, same as every rental car, every tour van, every airport transfer. It's the fast, obvious way, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just not the only way, and it's not the interesting one.
The route everyone takes
The coastal highway does exactly what it's supposed to: it gets you from the Central Valley to the Pacific efficiently. You'll pass the usual gas-station-and-soda stops, a lot of trucks, and eventually the turn for Quepos and Manuel Antonio. Functional. Forgettable. It's the road equivalent of the direct flight — you get there, but you don't remember much of the trip itself.
The route we'd actually take
The inland route runs up through the hills southwest of San José — through Puriscal, past coffee country, along ridgelines with the kind of views that don't show up on a highway sign — before dropping back down toward the coast. It's exactly two hours, door to door, between our gate and Manuel Antonio, along what might be the most scenic backroad we've driven in this country, and we've driven a lot of them.
It's not a shortcut. It's not necessarily faster on paper than the highway. It's just a completely different two hours — one where the drive is part of the trip instead of the part you tolerate to get to the trip.
We've done the highway. We've done this route. We will drive this one for fun, on a random Tuesday, with nowhere to be. That should tell you something.
Why stop here
Most itineraries treat San José-to-Manuel-Antonio as a single transit day — wake up, drive, arrive, done. Breaking it with a night in the hills does two things: it turns a travel day into an actual part of the trip, and it gives you a genuine contrast before the beach — cool mountain mornings, real farm food, a soundtrack of birds instead of traffic, before you're back in flip-flops and sunscreen. It's the same amount of driving either way. The only difference is whether all of it happens in one long push or gets split by an actual stop worth making.
How to actually do it
You'll want a 4x4 for the last stretch into Tufares — same as always, we're not going to undersell that part. The exact pin, drive times, and what's nearby are all on the Getting Here page. If you're coordinating a stop as part of a bigger trip, message us on WhatsApp and we'll help you figure out timing so it actually works with the rest of your route instead of fighting it.
If this is the kind of routing you'd actually use, the waitlist is the best way to get notified when founding-guest dates open — this is exactly the kind of stopover we're building toward.