hrm, it REALLY depends on what you are after. CR has so many ecosystems, great hiking, beaches, surfing, volcanoes…and then Belize has some of the best diving in the world, great Mayan historical sites and caving. More tourist oriented versus less, Spanish versus English, etc.

I agree with Degan… if you are all for the beach thing, I would say Belize but if you want to see volcanoes, rainforests & hang out in the hot springs than C.R.

Here’s a great website to give you more ideas about C.R.

http://www.visitcostarica.com/ict/paginas/home.asp

PS: if you decide on C.R. brush up on your Spanish … sometimes they try to take advantage of a poor “Gringo” who doesn’t speak the language. Been there, done that!

Good luck!
Ann

I have never been to Belize, but I recently spent around 10 days in Costa Rica hiking through rain forests, climbing up to an active volcanoe, traveling around San Jose, experiencing the cloud forests, relaxing in the natural hot springs. Costa Rica has a lot to offer: the beaches, the volcanoes, the cloud and rain forests, and much much more! Even if you do not speak Spanish, I’m sure that you would be fine, for there are hundreds of tourists around that could help you. The hostels we stayed in were fabulous. Gringo Pete’s in La Fortuna where Arenal is located, is the best hostel in that area. Tranquilo is a hostel in San Jose that I loved! Good luck!!:)

Well, I have been to Costa Rica with a Spanish language program. I thought it was beautiful and through the program we got to experience much of the cultural and natural experiences with a limited amount of touristy (i.e. beachy activities). We did visit the Manuel Antonio beach and it was gorgeous, it is in the national park so much of it is quite nicely kept up. The area around the beach was more touristy. The country as a whole . . . amazing. My cousin went to Belize on a missions trip. The area she went to was actually English speaking. Look into the types of things you want to do and the culture you want to be immersed in I am sure you will have a great time in either country.

We spent 15 days in CR and didn’t run out of things to do or see (fact is we missed several big things we would have liked to see). Our spanish is very limited and we had no real problems. The costs of things are very cheap. We spent about $10 a night on basic, clean, and friendly hotels. We traveled by local bus for next to nothing (Coast to coast bus ride $10). Do try and get a “Directo” bus if you can because it’s faster and easier than busses that make local stops.

You can eat for a 2-5 dollars pretty well. We packed about 4-5 days clothing and found it easy to drop it off at a local laundry for $3 a load.

I’ve never been to Belize so I’ll leave it up to the others to answer.

I’ve only been to Belize so far (C.R. in November!), but I can say that if you DO decide to go to Belize, make sure you only transfer through Belize City. It is not really a place that offers anything special as far as I could tell. If you want a really, really nice place to stay with the best service and food in Belize, stay at Victoria House in San Pedro (Abergris Caye). The other places to stay in San Pedro were either way too far out of San Pedro Town to make you feel completely cut off from the culture, or they were really touristy-feeling in a bad way or looked good on the web site but wound up shabby-looking upon arrival. Victoria House costs a little more, but you get the “promise”.

Also, visits into the jungle to see Mayan ruins are really good in Belize! If you do this, make sure to pay the extra money for a local guide to narrate the Mayan legends! Fascinating.

And of course, you can’t ignore the fact that Belize has the second largest REEF in the world for snorkeling!