Travel to Central America

Costa Rica's National Parks and Preserves: A Visitor's Guide, Second Edition

Format: Paperback
Author: Joseph Franke
ReleaseDate: September, 1999
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Rating:

Good supplement to travel guides
It's much better than most travel guides for specific park info. This book is great for what it is. It includes maps of trails, information on getting to the parks, whether the park itself has accomodations available, and wildlife/ecosystem information for each park.

DO NOT use this as your only guide. There is no info on accomodations or restaurants in the area. Also, some of the best places to go in Costa Rica are private reserves, rather than national parks. .

Excellent resource for the nature-conscious traveler
Also, there is a considerable amount of natural history information that was not contained in the other books that we had with us, such as the Lonely Planet guide. Contrary to the last review, we found this book to be extremely useful, and it contained background information and useful maps (such as the area around Sirena ranger station in Corcovado) not contained in other more general guidebooks.

Waste of paper!
I purchased this book hoping it would contain more info on the parks than the standard Costa Rica guidebooks. This book provides very little practical information. I was sadly disappointed. The other guide books such as The New Key to Costa Rica and Moon's Handbook provide as much and in some cases more info on the parks than this guide. Plus they provide all the other information such as hotels, restaurants and transportation.
Save your money. I wish I had.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Central America travel books.

	Waterproof Costa Rica Map
	Costa Rican Wildlife: An Introduction to Familiar Species (Pocket Naturalist - Waterford Press)
	Costa Rica (Traveller's Wildlife Guides)