This tour to the majestic Arenal Volcano and beautiful Eco Termales Hot Springs is a perfect mix of exercise, adventure and deep relaxation. Costa Rica is known for its corridor of volcanoes, including the active but “sleeping” Arenal Volcano. With an almost perfect, conical shape and distinctive pointed top, this volcano has become a well sought-after tourist destination for many years. Quietly hovering more than 5,000 feet over the colorful town of La Fortuna, it is an awesome presence with numerous hot springs.
To begin you will be picked up from your hotel in La Fortuna and taken to an Arenal nature reserve for your first adventure, hiking the volcano. Throughout your hike, you’ll see majestic volcano and the stunning Arenal Lake (cloud-cover permitting).
Your naturalist guide will help you search for and identify any animal life, birds or other creatures you may find that live in the forest canopy, as well as tell you the interesting history of this area. This is a moderate hike with gentle elevation. However, many people are thankful that they get to rest their feet and legs relaxing in the hot springs after trekking back to the park entrance!
Next you’ll be driven over to Eco Termales Hot Springs where you will be dropped off to spend time luxuriating in the hot springs and to enjoy a delicious dinner buffet. The lush misty jungle surrounding the pools and intimate environment will likely make you feel that you are in paradise. The well maintained spring fed pools, changing room, stairs and lawn chairs bring a sense of ease and balance to the more rustic natural surroundings. Enjoy a natural shoulder massage underneath a waterfall, or just simply relax and soak in the different temperature pools available.
Hot springs are a remarkable by-product of the Arenal Volcano’s geothermic activity. Hotels and hot spring resorts have tapped into this natural resource to offer tourists and locals the opportunity to take advantage of the warm, mineral rich waters while being immersed in a well-maintained comfortable environment landscaped with the amazing tropical flowers found in Costa Rica.
When you are ready, you can change back into your dry clothes in the available changing rooms and enjoy a delicious buffet dinner in the open-air restaurant that sits adjacent to the pools. You will be picked up after dinner at an arranged time and brought back to your hotel.
This nurturing nature tour includes a bilingual guide, transportation, admission to both the nature reserve hike and hot springs as well as buffet dinner. If you would like to rent a locker at the hot springs, be sure to bring cash for this transaction as they do not take credit cards. Transportation in the La Fortuna area can take between 15- 45 minutes each way, depending on where your hotel is located. Overall combined time of the tour plus round trip transportation can be between 4 and 6 hours, especially if your hotel is located further out. Be sure to wear appropriate hiking shoes as well as bring insect repellent, sun screen, camera, bathing suit and towel.
The Arenal Volcano and Ecotermales Hot Springs is available from Arenal, Arenal Zone 2, Arenal Zone 3, Chachagua Rainforest Hotel, and Nuevo Arenal
All Ages
Latitude: N 10° 29' 1.99"
Longitude: W 84° 40' 30.4"
08/13/2023
The Arenal Tour was marked by heavy rain which did not make a positive impact, despite good guide. The Ecotermal was not the best experience: too much people in the pools and very old people. In addition, we book our dinner for 8 pm, and we were the last booking, so the buffet was basically over and there was no replenishment
07/31/2023
Really enjoyed the hot spring experience and the buffet was delicious.
07/01/2023
Excellent tour guides and overall great experience
06/07/2023
The english of the guide was sufficient, but could have been better. Ecotermales was superb!
02/13/2023
You y was amazing there!!
01/10/2023
Great -very informative tour!
07/18/2022
Overall I enjoyed the tour. The hike was pretty simple and had nice views of the volcano. The hot springs were relaxing and it wasn't crowded which was nice!
09/02/2019
Our guide on the hike at the volcano was great! Very knowledgeable and hands on showing all the plants and animals. Hike wasn't too difficult and took lots of breaks to explain what we were looking at. The hot springs were relaxing and food wasn't amazing but wasn't bad.
08/28/2017
Hot springs were great but hiking in the afternoon in the rainy season is dumb. We didn't expect that.
05/11/2017
Delicious food and beautiful surroundings. We went at night and it was raining which provided for a magical experience of being in the warm waters with cool rain falling. The staff was friendly and helpful. Very clean and modern facility with clean lockers, showers, and restrooms.
03/29/2017
I think more or less this just wasn't something my wife and I were into very much.
03/03/2017
Would have preferred to do the hike earlier in the day (would have been better to have scheduled the hike at 10 am) so as to get to the hot springs before dark.
02/05/2017
We really enjoyed the private tour walking hiking even though it was raining. The guide was very knowledgeable and made sure that we were comfortable. We love the hot springs so much we decided to stay the whole day and extend our time!
01/29/2015
Although it was raining and we didn't get to see the volcano, the tour was very informative. And the hot springs were so nice. The food at Ecotermales was delicious and it was nice because it didn't seem too crowded. We even had a pool to ourselves most of the night.