Lapa Rios Lodge

The Osa Peninsula sits at the extreme end of Costa Rica’s considerable wilderness spectrum. Jutting into the Pacific from the country’s southern coast, covered almost entirely in primary and secondary rainforest, and accessible only by small aircraft or a long road journey involving at minimum one river crossing, it holds more than half of Costa Rica’s vertebrate species, in a country that itself contains five percent of the world’s total biodiversity. National Geographic has called it the most biologically intense place on Earth, and the description holds up.

Lapa Rios Lodge has occupied its ridge in the peninsula’s northwestern corner since 1993, when John and Karen Lewis established what became one of the most influential eco-lodges in Central America. The property manages 1,000 acres of private rainforest reserve as a buffer zone between the national park and surrounding agricultural land, maintaining biodiversity corridors and running a community programme that provides employment and conservation education to nearby villages. The private reserve, combined with national park adjacency and genuine community engagement, produces a wildlife experience that takes years to build and can’t be replicated quickly.

The bungalows are elevated structures on wooden stilts that place the sleeping level at canopy height on the lodge’s forested ridge. Open-sided sleeping areas replace conventional walls with heavy gauze screening, so the forest, its sounds, scents, and the constant movement of the canopy, is present from the bed. The 5am dawn chorus here, hundreds of species starting simultaneously, is disorienting in the best possible way. The resident scarlet macaw colony nests in the almond trees adjacent to the main lodge; pairs of brilliant red birds against the Pacific sky at dawn is the image most guests carry home.

Wildlife excursions are guided by a team who have grown up on the peninsula and carry decades of accumulated knowledge. All four resident monkey species, howler, spider, capuchin, and squirrel, are reliably encountered daily. Tapir, peccary, coati, and jaguar or puma tracks turn up on night walks. The beaches below the lodge are excellent for sea turtle nesting observation from May through October. The Osa is hot, humid, muddy, and full of insects. That’s the point. For anyone who travels to engage seriously with the natural world, it’s hard to find better.