Something that I love about Costa Rica vacations tours is the short distance between one point and another. You can go from the plains and dry forest in the North Pacific to the cloud forest in less than three hours, and the go to the metro area chilly volcanoes in another three or four hours, and end you trip in the Caribbean paradise in another four hours.

I started my adventure travel in Guanacaste a few days ago, using Liberia as my hub to move to other places. I went surfing at some beaches, took a plane to Nosara and Ostional, went to the volcanoes in the north, went down to Monteverde, and I’m currently writing from La Fortuna, with the Arenal volcano in front of me. After La Fortuna, I’ll go back to Liberia and continue my Costa Rica surfing trip over the coast, but I’ll be back later since there so many places that I won’t visit this time.

If you come to La Fortuna, the Arenal Volcano is probably the most popular touristic attraction, and the most prominent, being one of the best Costa Rica tours. A relatively young volcano with an almost perfect cone at 5300 feet high, the Arenal is really impressive. You start seeing it miles away from Fortuna, and once you get there, it can be seen from anywhere in the town, which is located just 4 miles from the volcano.

But the volcano is not the only attraction here: next to it there’s an artificial lake with the same name, where you can kayak, windsurf and fish among other water activities. If you look to keep your feet dry, there are lots of things to do, like walks, horseback riding, canopy tours and suspended bridges.

There are Costa Rica luxury hotels here, some of them spas with hot spring pools and thermal waters and rides to the La Fortuna waterfalls. At night, you can hear the rumbling of the volcano, and many times every month, the red hot lava flows descending the volcano hills can be seen from town and hotels. I’ll decide where I’m going to in the next couple days, and let you know about it soon.