I’m being invited to a wedding in Costa Rica on June 2nd. I’d like to go but don’t know how to find the most economical flights or places to stay. I know the wedding is in San José.
I live in NJ so I can fly out of EWR, JFK, LGA or PHI if I needed to.
I won’t be of much direct help but Costa Rica is a great place. There is a lot to see and do and the country isn’t that big if you any time at all to explore. Have you tried expedia.com, travelocity.com and those types of sites. They should tell you about how much it is. If you want to, you can stay and be entertained in Costa Rica very cheaply. They have acceptable hotels for $20 a night or so but they have full priced luxury hotels as well. Food and entertainment can also be as cheap as you want either with nice, simple restaurant meals for just a few dollars a person. There are always Americans around and they love Americans because tourism is a key part of their economy. You can use U.S. dollars most places if you choose.
I just made up a reasonable itinerary from JFK to San Jose and it was about $600 which is what I guessed. It should be around that and that isn’t so bad.
There’s not much to do in San Jose itself. It’s a reasonably pleasant small city, but dull. (They have the world’s only kosher Burger King outside of Israel, which gave my husband no end of joy when we were there recently, but I doubt it’d be of much interest to you.) There are plenty of day trips or overnights near the city that are supposed to be quite lovely. We went a bit further afield, going first north, then west - we spent a few days in Arenal (go canyoning, a combination of a waterhike and rappelling down waterfalls, if you’re there - it was awesome, and you don’t need any rappelling experience to do it, although definitely bring solid watershoes of some sort), a day and a half in Monteverde (gorgeous cloud forests - take two guided hikes, one each during the day and night, with someone who can show you wildlife), and Playa Hermosa on the coast (very laid back beach town in Guanacaste - stay and the Villa del Sueno, which we loved and which was pretty reasonably priced). Bear in mind that June is during the rainy season, so plan on getting wet.
Totally go if you can! We had a wonderful time there, and didn’t want to come home.
I can only take off 4 days or so because I have the possibility of another wedding to attend the same month. So I was thinking of flying down on Thursday May 31st to give myself time to adjust to the flight and returning on June 4th or 5th. I’m sure my relative who is hosting the wedding will have some activities planned for us other than the wedding itself and while going to a kosher Burger King sounds interesting as a Jew who does not keep kosher it would not be a major event in my life.
I’m a heavy guy so I don’t know if I can do any kind of rappelling but it sounds interesting. Hiking sounds fun as long as it doesn’t requite too much scrambling over rocks.
I don’t know if I would rent a car there or not so I’d have to rely on public transportation.
We stayed at the Santo Tomas when we went there a couple years ago. It was a nice place, and they had a good restaurant. We visited El Mercado Central and the gold museum on our last day; they were within walking distance.
Rentacars ask for HUGE fianzas (they’ll charge you 2000$ returnable fee for a rental that costs less than $200), so unless your credit card can take that kind of hit without owieing and given that roads are Proud To Be Holey, tour buses are a very good choice.
Well, they’re not proud per se, but since they’re not built correctly and it rains a lot, they just become hole-filled real fast.
Hmmm … have been to CR a couple of times. It’s a relatively expensive (read that $600 is not that bad) kinda place to fly.
Once you get there, it tends to be cheap (although there are “american-style” hotels that will charge more). Last time we were there, we did a guided tour of the city (I got some great pix).
Don’t rent a car. Ticos are wonderful people, but driving there is like NYC - intensified 
If you’re staying in “el centro”, taxis are plentiful and cheap. As are buses (although I found them somewhat confusing).
A word of warning about taxis: if you’re planning on using one, make sure that you have some basic Spanish and know how Ticos give addresses (it’s in reference to landmarks and blocks away - for example, “four blocks south of the Church of the Holy Mother”. American style street addresses will get blank stares). Also take small change - hand a cab driver a 20,000 colon note and he’ll laugh at you (taxis are extremely cheap by US standards).
Buen viaje! I’m jealous 
Oh, yes. We were driven everywhere, either by taxi, bus or by drivers hired by the travel agency (we went through Adventure Life for our trip), and we knew in a heartbeat that we’d never, ever drive if we returned. They don’t have rules of the road; they have suggestions.