Nosara and Santa Teresa get written about. Esterillos Oeste gets the empty beach.
All three sit on the Pacific and all three are beautiful. They are not interchangeable.
If you want a bustling town – restaurants, studios, Iots of other travellers – choose Nosara or Santa Teresa.
If you want a Costa Rican surf village with more wildlife than people, that is Esterillos Oeste.
Esterillos Oeste is under two hours from Juan Santamaría (SJO), on paved highway.
Nosara and Santa Teresa are on the Nicoya Peninsula, best reached from Liberia (LIR): about three hours to Nosara and four to Santa Teresa, ending on rough, unpaved roads.
Nosara and Santa Teresa are established. There is a scene, and in high season there is traffic.
Esterillos Oeste has stayed off the route. Walk five kilometres either way along the beach and you are more likely to pass scarlet macaws, coatis and howler monkeys than other people.
Esterillos Oeste holds Costa Rica’s Ecological Blue Flag, the national award for water quality, safety and environmental management. It is a long, flat, grey-sand beach with a consistent break and a local surf scene.
There are also tidal pools, shallow and calm, and perfect for kids.
Anyone who would rather wake to birdsong than to traffic. Families and groups who want privacy more than a main street. Travellers who prefer a real Costa Rican village to a town built around its visitors. And anyone who can live without a chai latte within walking distance.
