The Flying Banana Tour: Costa Rica Birding & Food

The Flying Banana Tour is designed for the casual birder who also enjoys learning about a different culture through culinary exploration and customized excursions. Costa Rica is known for its rice and beans (particularly gallo pinto), but there is so much more to its cuisine! We will learn all about Costa Rican mainstays like coffee, bananas, and chocolate. We will also try a variety of tropical fruits as we tour the central market and an organic farm. We will eat in local sodas (small, family-run restaurants) and also in some of the most contemporary dining establishments. We will even get to help prepare a meal for ourselves in the home of a Costa Rican! Taste the historical influence of Spanish, Caribbean, and indigenous cultures and also note the fusion tendencies from more recent international influences. Become a foodie if you aren’t one already!

Costa Rica is also one of the top birding destinations in the world, with many different ecosystems and elevations to explore. Starting at our hotel in San Jose, we will provide opportunities for daily birding walks at the places we are staying as well as at nearby birding hotspots. Expect to see more than one hundred species of tropical birds over the course of the trip, including spectacular ones like the Yellow-throated Toucan, Red-legged Honeycreeper, Montezuma Oropendola, and Green-fronted Lancebill. Some of our guided walks will focus on more than birds: a night hike at Selva Verde Lodge, a morning at the world-famous La Selva Biological Station, and a natural history hike at the Mistico Park Hanging Bridges. Take your birding to the next level with us: enthusiasm is required, but birding experience is not!

This tour is designed to provide an immersive experience through nature, culture, and food discovery. If you like birds and food and have a spirit of curiosity, this is the tour for you! However, if you want a complete tropical birding tour, I recommend that you look at our other tour options. Likewise, if you aren’t interested in birds, this isn’t the tour for you, as we will spend hours most days observing our feathered friends. Please note also that there will be time incorporated in our schedule for rest and relaxation, usually in early afternoon.

Join IndiGo Birding Nature Tours for the inaugural birding and food tour of Costa Rica, a treasure chest of biodiversity and emerging cuisine. Because the Keel-billed Toucan has been nicknamed the Flying Banana (with its long, yellow beak) and because Costa Rica is a major banana producer, we thought the Flying Banana Tour would be a fitting name for a trip focused on both the foods and birds of this Central American country. Over the course of this 8-day tour we will spend our mornings in search of toucans, macaws, and hummingbirds and then visit unique restaurants and farms that provide a tasty, immersive experience for new and savvy travelers alike.
Don’t miss out on this unique trip, a carefully selected mix of activities that will make for a delightful vacation of birding, tasting, and enjoying the tropics. Pura vida!

Itinerary:

Day 1 (July 8, 2025)
Arrival in San Jose
Welcome to Costa Rica! Schedule your flight to arrive in the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) on the 8th. A shuttle will be available to take you across town to Hotel Bougainvillea, where we will gather in the evening for a welcome meeting and dinner. If you arrive early, you can enjoy a walk and some birding in the lovely gardens on-site.

Day 2 (July 9)
Intro to Costa Rican food
Enjoy breakfast and a bird walk at Bougainvillea before checking out. Our main activity today is a customized tour in downtown San Jose with San Jose Urban Tours. Our guide will show us the city market and introduce us to many of the specialty fruits and foods of Costa Rica. We then depart the capital city and drive to Hotel Quelitales, located in the mountains and home to delicious food (especially trout) and a bird list of 450 species, where we will spend two nights.

Day 3 (July 10)
Birds & Coffee
Two things that will be a part of every day: birds and coffee! Today we have a bird walk on the grounds of Hotel Quelitales before we visit Finca Cristina for a tour of the coffee-making process. Finca Cristina is a family farm with a small-scale mill and roaster located on the south slopes of the Irazu volcano. This farm focuses on coffee that is produced as one part of the greater ecosystem. After the tour, we will eat lunch at a local soda (small, family-owned restaurant) and introduce you to the casado (typical plate for the “married man”). Back at Quelitales, we will watch the oropendolas and as many as 10 hummingbird species.

Day 4 (July 11)
A true chocolate experience
After some more birding and breakfast at Quelitales, we check out and drive to Nortico Cacao Farm for a chocolate tour, a must for all Costa Rica visitors. See the process from beginning to end, and even make your own chocolate bar! There is also a chance to find out how refined and sophisticated your taste buds are as you taste samples and explore the Cacao Flavor Profile Map. Our afternoon drive will take us to Selva Verde Lodge, a birding lodge on the banks of the Sarapiqui River and our accommodations for the next two nights. Enjoy a guided night hike to see the nocturnal creatures that thrive in the dark.

Day 5 (July 12)
Tropical Rainforest Birding
After breakfast, we will take a short bus ride to meet our guide for a morning of exploring the rainforest at La Selva Biological Station, one of the premier birding destinations in Costa Rica. While birds will be our focus, we will also explore the mammals, amphibians, botany, and general ecology of the area. And what’s a flying banana tour without bananas?!? Our afternoon outing will take us to a local business where we learn all about bananas during the Cultural Banana Tour.

Day 6 (July 13)
Organic Farming & Modern Dining
This day is a true “farm-to-table” experience. We will visit the Finca Ecoorganica Sarapiqui for a guided tour of their farm. We will learn about and sample traditional crops like heart of palm, pineapple, passion fruit, and more before they cook lunch for us. Then we move on to the town of La Fortuna, a popular destination below the Arenal Volcano. We will check in to our cabins at Hotel Campo Verde before dining at Don Rufino Restaurant, where they mix the best local flavors with those of world cuisine. The chef will prepare a prix fixe tasting menu for us that will surely delight!

Day 7 (July 14)
Hanging Bridges & Cooking Class
The mountains and rain forests of Costa Rica can be explored in many ways, but one of the best approaches is to hike the hanging bridges. We will go on a guided natural history (and birding) hike at the Mistico Park Hanging Bridges in the morning. Then we head into town for a cooking class in the home of Lali’s friend Giselle. Grand finale to an amazing day will be the “dinner with a view” experience at Jalapas restaurant. Pura Vida!

Day 8 (July 15)
Bird your way to San Jose
Our final full day in Costa Rica begins with a guided bird walk in the richly biodiverse Arenal area. After we pack up at Hotel Campo Verde, we start the drive up and over the mountains to San Jose. However, we will stop for lunch at Soda y Mirador Cinchona for a classic Costa Rican lunch, with specialty drinks and Olla de Carne among the numerous options. We will enjoy the spectacular view and the amazing birds at their birdfeeders while we eat. We then drive into San Jose, where we will stay at the Fairfield by Marriott by the airport. The grand finale to the tour is our dinner at Silvestre, one of Costa Rica’s best restaurants where a tasting menu awaits.

Day 9 (July 16)
Departure Day
The Flying Banana Tour has come to an end, but you should be departing with a full belly, many wonderful memories, and hopefully some new friends. Breakfast is included at the hotel at your leisure. Free shuttle transportation to the airport is also available, so you should be able to catch a flight at whatever time works best for your schedule and budget.