Turtles, Toucans & Treehouse Lodges

The journey to Tortuguero is half the experience. An early morning transfer to Guapiles, breakfast at a local restaurant, then a boat through a network of jungle canals — herons fishing the banks, caimans on the mud, howler monkeys in the canopy overhead. Mawamba Lodge sits right on the edge of the national park, and the grounds themselves are a wildlife encounter — butterfly farms, a frog garden, river turtles and trails through the forest. In the evenings, if the timing is right, guides lead torchlit walks to watch green sea turtles hauling themselves up the beach to nest.

Transfer from the Caribbean to the Pacific lowlands and the landscape changes completely — wide valleys, rice paddies and then, rising from the jungle, the perfect cone of Arenal Volcano. An evening at Tabacón Hot Springs — natural thermal pools at the base of an active volcano, surrounded by tropical garden — is one of those experiences that children and adults remember equally vividly. A sloth tour the following morning, with a specialist guide, brings you within a few metres of three-toed sloths sleeping in the cecropia trees.

The drive up to Monteverde winds into the clouds and delivers one of Costa Rica's most distinctive experiences. The cloud forest is a different ecosystem entirely — cooler, mistier and alive with species that live nowhere else. A guided walk in the Santa María Forest at night reveals a world invisible during the day: sleeping birds, poison dart frogs, stick insects and the glowing eyes of nocturnal mammals. Children find this genuinely magical in a way that's increasingly rare in travel.

Si Como No Resort sits on the hillside above Manuel Antonio, with its own wildlife refuge, two pools and a path that leads directly into the national park. Squirrel monkeys visit the gardens. White-faced capuchins are common on the beach path. Sloths hang from the cecropia trees above the trail. The guided park walk on the first morning is essential — the guide makes the invisible visible — and the remaining days are for the beach, the pools and the slow, happy realisation that you're not quite ready to leave.