The bucket list · Costa Rica
Costa Rica has around six courses worth the long-haul trip, mostly in Guanacaste on the Pacific coast, with the most settled weather from mid-December to April. We have never sold Costa Rica before, so register your interest and help shape our first trips.
Sunrise over the Pacific. Your first tee shot above a white-shell beach, forest either side of the fairway by lunch, and a five-star pool waiting when you walk off the eighteenth. We’ve never sold Costa Rica before, and we’d rather ask than guess. If this sounds like your kind of trip, tell us, and we’ll build the first ones around what you want.
Why we think it’s worth it
Your fourball has done Portugal and Spain. Very few British golfers have stood on a tee above the Pacific with a volcano on the horizon. Since 25 October 2026 British Airways has flown non-stop from Heathrow, five times a week through the winter, and the first dry season on that schedule belongs to the people who move early.
The two best courses here don’t sell green fees at the gate. Reserva Conchal opens to resort guests; Palmer’s Ocean Course opens to members and the peninsula’s hotels. Stay in the right rooms and you play golf most travelling golfers never will. That’s the kind of scorecard you frame.
This is the rare golf trip where the non-golfers say yes before you’ve finished asking. Rainforest walks, wildlife everywhere, surf beaches, and hotels people recognise from magazine covers. You get your rounds; everyone gets the holiday of the year.
The dry season runs mid-December to April: precisely the months your home course is waterlogged and the trolley ban is on. In Guanacaste that same week is dry, bright and in the high twenties. Six hours behind London in winter, seven in British Summer Time, so the jet lag is a long lunch, not a lost day.
Make it yours
Tap your party to see the trip we have in mind. These are ideas, not yet bookable trips, and your answers will shape them.
Base yourselves on the Papagayo Peninsula, where the Four Seasons and Andaz share a private headland with Arnold Palmer’s Ocean Course. You play as the mist lifts; by early afternoon you’re both at the pool, on a boat, or doing absolutely nothing beautifully.
Two couples travelling together? The same week works beautifully for four: one golfing pair on the Ocean Course, the other at the spa, and everyone back at the same table for dinner.
Finish on the Central Pacific: a round at La Iguana with the monkeys watching, then a final night at clifftop Villa Caletas watching the sun drop into the sea. It’s the anniversary trip that still counts as a golf holiday.
Guanacaste is yours for the week: Reserva Conchal above the beach one day, Hacienda Pinilla’s longer test the next, lazy beach lunches in between. Stay on the Conchal estate at the W or the Westin and the course is simply yours as guests.
Settle the scores at La Iguana, where a howler monkey heckling your putt is a genuine local rule. Fly home with the one trip the rest of the club hasn’t done, yet.
Ten nights, the grand Pacific circuit: Central Valley, Guanacaste, then south to Los Sueños. Your own private vehicle and English-speaking driver throughout, so the only decision after breakfast is who’s in which fourball.
Mixed party? This is the destination that solves it: golfers play four different courses; everyone else chooses volcanoes, wildlife and pools, and you all compare notes over dinner. Milestone birthdays have been built on far less.
The golf
The best of them sit behind resort gates, which is exactly why the hotel matters more here than almost anywhere else we know. Stay in the right one and the tee sheet opens, which is how we’re building our trips.
Eighteen holes rolling through dry tropical forest above Playa Conchal’s white-shell sand, with the Pacific flashing between the trees.
Your key: stay at the W or Westin on the estate
A private-peninsula course threaded between jungle and sea. Most golfers will only ever see photographs of it.
Your key: the Four Seasons or Andaz on the peninsula
A links-feel layout stretching to 7,200 yards behind Playa Avellanas. Usually the sternest test of the trip, and the one the low handicappers talk about after.
Your key: the JW Marriott next door
Carved through rainforest beside Herradura Bay. The club counts monkeys and more than 150 species of birds among its gallery.
Your key: the Los Sueños Marriott on the resort
The Central Valley’s open-access eighteen, minutes from the capital’s best hotels. The sensible first round while the body clock catches up.
San José’s traditional members’ club, tight and tree-lined. Visitor access is by arrangement with the club.
The gates are the point: if anyone could hand over a green fee at the Ocean Course, it wouldn’t be the round you frame.
Where you’ll wake up
In Costa Rica the hotel isn’t just where you sleep, it’s your course access. We place you where the doors open, and we’ll steer you to the room categories genuinely worth having when we build your quote.
★★★★★Five star
The name that sells the trip on its own: a private peninsula between two beaches, with Palmer’s Ocean Course on the doorstep. Wake early, play as the mist lifts, breakfast overlooking the bay you’ll swim in after.
★★★★★Five star
The peninsula’s newest arrival and its most exclusive tier: Reserve is the marque Ritz-Carlton saves for a handful of places on earth. Same private headland, same Ocean Course access.
★★★★★Five star
The relaxed sibling on the peninsula: barefoot-smart, jungle-wrapped, and a natural choice for groups who want Ocean Course access in a more laid-back setting than the Four Seasons.
★★★★★Five star
Two ways into the same prize: both sit on the Conchal estate above the course, so the golf comes with the room. The W brings the energy; the Westin brings the calm. We’ll match the party to the property.
★★★★★Five star
Beachfront beside the trip’s toughest course. Play Pinilla’s 7,200 yards in the morning, spend the afternoon at one of the largest pools in the country debating what happened on the back nine.
Nearby: the Waldorf Astoria Punta Cacique joins this coast soon
★★★★Four & five star
The Marriott puts La Iguana and the marina outside your door for the final rounds. Then Villa Caletas: a clifftop hideaway whose sunsets end the trip the way it deserves. In the capital, boutique Grano de Oro or the Marriott Hacienda Belen bookend the flights.
How your trip runs
The two shapes we have in mind. Your dates, your pace and your party will shape the real thing.
When to go
Mid-December to April is the dry season and prime golf weather, especially in Guanacaste. May, June and November trade a short afternoon shower for quieter courses. September and October are wettest on the Pacific side.
British Airways has flown the route from Heathrow since 25 October 2026 and keeps it year-round, with five flights a week in winter. The 2026/27 dry season is the first winter on that schedule.
Getting there
London Heathrow to San José, five times a week this winter and three a week next summer. Leave at 11:10, land at 16:40 local time.
Frankfurt to San José, three to five times a week this winter. A one-change option from many UK and Irish airports.
From London Heathrow it’s one non-stop flight. Choose your airport for the best connection.
Our trips will run on private transfers with English-speaking drivers; distances look short on the map and rarely are. Flights we book with the trip are ATOL protected.
The journey, made simple
One flight, no changes, and a driver holding your name on the other side. Here’s the whole thing, door to first tee.
Day 1
The direct BA flight lands mid-afternoon local time. Your driver is waiting; twenty minutes later you’re checked in, drink in hand, your body clock running six hours ahead, or seven in British Summer Time, in the best possible way. Early night, big week.
Days 1–2
A night at Grano de Oro or the Marriott Hacienda Belen, then your opening round at Valle del Sol while the body clock settles. By lunch you’ve got a scorecard from a country most of your club couldn’t place on a map.
Days 3–6
North-west by private transfer to the good stuff: Reserva Conchal above the beach from the W or Westin, Hacienda Pinilla’s longer test by the JW Marriott, and, if you’re staying on Papagayo, the Palmer Ocean Course. The beach handles the evenings.
Days 6–7
South to Los Sueños for La Iguana, where monkeys watch from the canopy. Your last night is Villa Caletas on its clifftop, watching the Pacific take the sun down. Nobody talks on the drive back; they’re composing the story for home.
Day 8
Morning transfer, direct flight, home in time for Sunday. The photos go in the group chat before you’ve cleared the baggage hall, and someone is already asking about next year. That’s how these trips go.
Costa Rica 2026/27
We’ve never sold Costa Rica, and we want to get it right before we do. Tell us who’d travel, when, and what would make it the trip of a lifetime. If enough golfers want it, we’ll build it around your answers, and you’ll see it before anyone else.
Tell us who’s travelling and when you’d like to go, and we’ll shape the first trips around what golfers actually ask for.
Thirty seconds now. Everyone else sees the trips the day they publish; you’ll see them first.
Questions golfers ask us
Not yet. We have never sold Costa Rica before, and before we build our first golf holidays there we want to know there is genuine interest. Register on this page and tell us what you would want. If enough golfers want it, we will build the first trips around those answers and you will see them before anyone else. Registering costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Yes, with a caveat. There are around half a dozen courses worth the journey rather than dozens, led by Reserva Conchal above the beach and Arnold Palmer’s Ocean Course at Peninsula Papagayo, so it works best as golf plus a holiday: three or four superb rounds inside a wider trip, not back-to-back 36-hole days. The British Airways non-stop from Heathrow keeps the journey simple.
Mid-December to April is the dry season and the prime window, particularly in Guanacaste where most of the golf sits. May, June and November trade a short afternoon shower for quieter courses.
Since 25 October 2026 British Airways has flown non-stop from London Heathrow to San José, five times a week in winter, and the route runs year-round. Lufthansa flies from Frankfurt, Edelweiss from Zurich, and from late November Iberojet from Madrid.
Around 11 hours non-stop. British Airways flies from London Heathrow to San José five times a week this winter, leaving at 11:10 and landing at 16:40 local time, so you arrive the same afternoon.
The two best courses are restricted: Reserva Conchal to resort guests, and the Ocean Course at Peninsula Papagayo to members and resort guests. Book the right hotel and both open up, which is how we are building these trips.
Reserva Conchal and the Ocean Course at Peninsula Papagayo are usually named first. Both are restricted, Reserva Conchal to resort guests and the Ocean Course to members and resort guests, so the hotel you book decides whether you can play them.
One of the best we know. Volcanoes, cloud-forest walks, wildlife, surf beaches and some of the world’s most admired hotels mean the non-golfers in the party usually need no persuading.
Both work, and many trips use one for each direction. British Airways has flown non-stop from London Heathrow to San José since 25 October 2026, which suits itineraries starting in the Central Valley. Liberia is the closest airport to the Guanacaste resorts around Papagayo and Conchal, served from Zurich by Edelweiss via San José and non-stop from many US hubs. We route the flights around the shape of your trip.
No, and we’d steer you away from it. Our trips will run on private transfers with English-speaking drivers, from airport arrival to the last tee time. Distances in Costa Rica look short on the map and rarely are, so being driven keeps the days easy and the golf on schedule.
Photography: Papagayo sunset by andyav (CC0, WordPress Photos); Arenal volcano by Rhododendrites (CC BY-SA 4.0); scarlet macaws by Julio-César Chávez (CC BY 4.0); Pacific sunset by ImagePerson (CC BY 4.0); rainforest by Dave Brenner (CC BY 2.0); Playa Avellanas by DanielaAvila26 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Playa Hermosa by Guacamolio (CC BY-SA 4.0); Playa Carrillo by m.prinke (CC BY-SA 2.0).
