Most Wednesdays, I’ll tackle a country, state, or province, and design a route that hopefully will whet your appetite and get you primed to book that trip!  This week, I’m tackling Costa Rica for Families and we’re going to do it in a week. 

Rent a car at San Jose’s International Airport and weave your way through the city north to the rim of Poas Volcano, where you can spend your first night at the Peace Lodge (www.waterfallgardens.com/lapaz-peacelodge.html).  The next morning, walk the grounds of the La Paz Waterfall Gardens and you’ll find five waterfalls, the largest butterfly observatory in the country, gardens filled with orchids, and a reptile area holding snakes and frogs. 

Then drive onward to the Arenal Observatory Lodge (www.arenalobservatorylodge.com/EN), perfectly perched at the base of the cone-shaped volcano.  Keep the kids up late to see the nightly light show of lava running down from the crater.  In the daytime, you can check out the hot springs in nearby Tabacon.  Then you have the long drive around the entirety of 25-mile long Lake Arenal to Monteverde.  The last hour or so is on a nightmare of a dirt road.  Simply slow down and enjoy the views of sloping pasture dotted with sheeps, cows, and horses.

Up in the Cloud Forest, book a villa at El Sapo Dorado (www.sapodorado.com) and reserve trips to go horseback riding in nearby farmland, an exhilarating zipline trip above the cloud forest canopy with the outfitter Selvatura, and a guided walk at the hotel’s private preserve, Sempero Tranquillo, with an expert naturalist.  If you’re lucky, you’ll spot the iridescent green resplendent quetzal color with its red belly and billowing two-foot long tail feather

The final three days I would spend at Manuel Antonio, a mix of rainforest and beach on the central Pacific coast that's home to monkeys and those slow-moving sloths.  I would also consider ditching the car in nearby Quepos and flying back to San Jose, connecting to your international flight.  The drive back to San Jose goes through a mountainous pass on twisting roads behind rows of trucks spewing their diesel into the air.  Not a pleasant way to finish up that dream trip.

For an in-depth look at Manuel Antonio with the kids, check out my article for Away.com at http://away.com/features/family-travel-costa-rica-manuel-antonio-national-park-1.html.