Park Info

Opening hours are from 7 am to 4 pm every day of the year except for Mondays, including all holidays.

Admission fee is $16, children under 12 are free of admission. Tickets may be purchased at the park entrance at Coopealianza by cash or Visa. You can also buy a ticket at the COOPEALIANZA Quepos offices? They are open on Monday.

Guided tours are available at $51 for adults and $35 for children. Private tours are available at $71 for adults and $55 for children. All guided tours include round trip transportation from MA / Quepos hotels and vacation homes, entrance fee, bilingual certified guides with high tech telescopes, 2.5-3 hours of the guided tour including the time to spend at the beaches and tropical fruit. You can choose to spend the rest of the day inside the park to enjoy the beaches but might need to take the bus or a taxi back to your hotel.

For those visiting the park during Christmas, New Year’s and Easter, make sure to arrive as early as possible (7-7.30 am) in order to get in.

Be Aware!

If you are touring Manuel Antonio National Park on your own, please be aware that the road to the the National Park will be crowded with people selling their own services as “guides” and for parking or entrance tickets. They will dress like official rangers or guides and may have tags identifying them as park staff, but they are impostors with no relation to the park whatsoever. They will try and sell you overpriced tickets, tours and parking kilometers away from the entrance.

Please do not get intimidated by them, you can keep going all the way down to the park entrance and park there for C2000 -C3000 (less than $4-$6) and buy your tickets at the ticket booth ($16 for adults and children 12 and up).

If you’d like to book a professional guided tour please click HERE. Taxis are a great alternative to get to the park from your hotel, they charge around $5-$10/ride (depending on where you are staying)

Food Restrictions: Sodas and waters are permitted, non alcoholic drinks, but at the moment, any type of food is not allowed. This is in order to keep the impact on the environment as low as possible.

Distance from San José: 165 km.

Dry Season: December through April.

Size: 1950 hectares of land & 55000 marine hectares.

Difficulty: Easy, adapted trail for people in a wheelchair.

With the establishment of Manuel Antonio National Park in 1972, the people of Costa Rica decided to preserve, for future generations, one of the most beautiful and bio-diverse areas in the world. Although it is the country’s smallest national park, the stunning beauty and diversity of wildlife in its 683 hectares is unequaled.

Manuel Antonio contains a charming combination of the rain forest, beaches, and coral reefs. These beaches are the most beautiful in the country, lined with lush forest, and the snorkeling is excellent, too. The forest is home for sloths, iguanas, the rare and adorable squirrel monkeys, white-faced monkeys and millions of colorful little crabs. The trail that winds around Punta Catedral features some spectacular views. The park is easy to reach, south of the town of Quepos, and is near a good selection of hotels and restaurants.

Visiting the park, one is treated to an abundant diversity of wildlife. Cathedral Point, with its forest topped cliffs, was once an island but is now connected to the coast by a thin strip of island. This land bridge now forms the spine separating the parks two most popular beaches, Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio. The southern facing beach, Playa Manuel Antonio, is a picturesque half-mile long, white sand crescent bisecting deep green foliage to one side and a private, secluded cove to the other. Standing with your feet dug into the sand and watching the wave crash against the rocks on either side of the lagoon, it is easy to believe that you are a thousand miles from anywhere.

Getting there

Private transfers are available $160 – $300 depending on your group size and where you are coming from. Contact Us for exact pricing and reservations, indicating your travel date, your departure location and the number of people in your party.
Semi-private shuttles are available between most destinations in Costa Rica, in comfortable air-conditioned mini-vans, with door to door service from and to most hotels, for $45-$60 per person approx. For detailed pricing and bookings visit:

Domestic flights cost between $75 and $95 and there are 5 daily direct flights available between Quepos XQP and San Jose SJO. You can book your domestic flight with Sansa, AeroBell or SkyWay.
Public Bus: “Colectivo” buses stop right outside the airport (10:15am, 2:15pm, 3:15pm, 4:15pm and 5:15pm), 4 hours $8. “Directo” buses depart from the Tracopa bus terminal downtown (20 min cab or Uber ride) at 9am, 10:30am, 12pm, 1:15pm, 2:30pm, 4:45pm*, 6pm and 7:30pm (* = not on Sundays) for $10/person with 2.5 hours duration.
Get off the bus at the beach in MA and walk 5 minutes to the entrance.
Car Rental: We recommend renting small to midsize SUVs for Costa Rica. The main roads are all paved, but if you plan on exploring different areas of the country, you will be driving on dirt roads also. And some of the most beautiful places in the country are only accessible via dirt roads.
Our favorite car rental companies are:

Adobe Rent A Car

National Rent A Car

5% OFF on your booking with promo code: MAPark

Aerobell Airlines

If you need additional information or for reservations, please do not hesitate to Contact Us.

Looking for Accommodation near SJO? Try the Adventure Inn and get a 10% discount applied if booking through this link: http://www.adventure-inn.com/promo/manuelantonioestates

Contact us to assist in planning an unforgettable experience or Book your guide now

Why hire a guide to visit the Park?

When you hire a tour guide for the park, you get a unique educated experience about the park. See 5 reasons you should do a Manuel Antonio Park guided tour

Customer Comments

“On the tour, they will go in small groups of 8-10 passenger maximum. This makes the customer service personalized by receiving full information on the flora, fauna, history of the park and information on the culture of the area. Using their telescopes, observing animals is much easier. If you want to observe a particular animal, tell the guide and he will make it come true.”

“Through their telescopes the guides will take incredible photos of the flora and fauna of the Park.”

“As the tour has roundtrip transportation included from Quepos-Manuel Antonio, you do not have to worry about getting in line to buy tickets. It also includes a bottle of water and fresh tropical fruits”.

Difference between Private Tour and Group Tour

Private tours: Only you and your guide. You will have the flexibility to go to the other trails that normally do not get visited. If any of the clients have a special need to enter the park-like difficulty walking or needs a wheelchair, our guides will make arrangements with the management of the park. Group tours: Minimum 2 passengers, small groups of 8 people per guide.

Contact us to assist in planning an unforgettable experience. Book your guide now

Exclusive Sale of National Park tickets

After a contract was signed between COOPEALIANZA and SINAC on January 23, 2012, COOPEALIANZA assumes the exclusive sale of entrance tickets to the National Park Manuel Antonio. Tickets will be sold to nationals and tourists starting January 23 in both COOPEALIANZA offices in Quepos and Manuel Antonio and in a second phase, starting 1 April 2012, will be sold also to tour operators. The tickets can be purchased at COOPEALIANZA Don Bosco. Tour operators may purchase the tickets in advance and they do not expire but are valid only for one entrance, people are not allowed to leave and re-enter the park as they were before.

Manuel Antonio’s hidden history

Ponce de León, the Spanish explorer, whose futile search for the Fountain of Youth became his signature expedition, is rarely recognized for one of his greatest discoveries – Quepos and Manuel Antonio – which he put on the charts in 1519. So abundant are the riches of Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast, that he might have found his fabled fountain had he gone ashore and explored the region.

Book your trip today!

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Have a Question?

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