Costa Rica: The Complete Guide: Eco-adventures in Paradise Paperback – January 18, 2013

James Kaiser is a wonderful author and and amazing photographer. This guide book captures both of his talents perfectly. The information in this book is organized by region. By the time I finished reading it, I knew exactly where I wanted to spend most of my time in Costa Rica. My family and I are heading for Manuel Antonio in February, and I will definitely be bringing this book with me.Guide books are generally bullet lists of hotels, restaurants and attractions. Kaiser's book is more of a narrative of the five years he spent exploring and researching this country. It is written with passion, and an obvious love for the region. There are 150 pages dedicated to the history, culture, adventure opportunities, and practical matters related to getting around the country and blending in with the locals. The other 300+ pages describe the seven different regions of the country. Each of these sections of the book contains valuable information about the towns, parks, beaches, and adventure tours located within each region. Kaiser does provide several recommendations for restaurants, lodging, and tour guides, but this book is much more than a list. It's a novel about one man's adventure of a lifetime.

I have several other guidebooks to Costa Rica. I find this book to be different than the others in that this book reads differently. I read the entire book in one sitting because it was so interesting and gave me a "feel" of Costa Rica rather than just tidbits of information. I know this because I traveled throughout Costa Rica on 3 separate trips in 2012 as my partner and I will be moving to a piece of property we bought at the entrance of Cabo Blanco. Though we were able to navigate some interesting and remote areas of Costa Rica without this guide, it would have been that much better if we had this book during those trips. We're going to the Corcovado area in April and appreciate the information in Kaiser's guide as he includes up-to-date information that we haven't seen in the other guide.The photographs in the book are beautiful and the area maps are also great. Kaiser also provides great cultural information for the traveler, which we will definitely use on our next trip. You cannot go wrong with this book. You can tell that Kaiser loves Costa Rica and that he took the time to absorb the country and eloquently relay that information to his audience. We also recommend this book to those who are thinking about moving to Costa Rica because there is valuable information about the customs, animals, history, and practicalities about living in Costa Rica.

I enjoyed learning some history of Costa Rica and the good advice the author has. I appreciated the heads up on different customs and the advice to get the GPS. This is something you want to read before you go to help you decide what you want to do there and which area would suit you best. It isn't very useful once you are there.

My wife and I have just returned from 2 weeks in Costa Rica and had a fabulous time. We used James Kaiser's book to plan the trip as well as a reference during the trip and found it enormously helpful. Right away I could tell that his sensibilities were in line with ours. He focused on presenting an authentic and complete experience of Costa Rica. We followed his recommendations for visiting some of the less touristed places as well as the not-to-miss sites such as Monteverde. Cahuita on the south Caribbean coast and Rio Celeste up north are two such recommendations that we particularly enjoyed. He also provided some very practical and useful information on driving, eating, transportation and money as well as an overview of the history and culture of the country. And his photography of this beautiful country gave us images to dream on as the trip grew near. I emailed James as I was in the planning stages, on a whim, telling myself not to count on a reply, but he replied the very next day and we had a 3 or 4 email exchange that was invaluable in buttoning down our itinerary and greatly appreciated. So if you are thinking of going to Costa Rica, get this guidebook! You won't be disappointed.

We just returned from 9 days in Costa Rica, and thoroughly enjoyed this book. The introduction is expansive and very well written. The pictures are amazing! Mr Kaiser is quite the photographer, and the book is filled with his pictures of nature. In terms of accuracy, everything we found to be 95% correct, which is very difficult to achieve in a tour guide. In comparison, a book like the Eyewitness guide had a mistake on every page. I like opinionated guide books: while the Eyewitness encourages you to spend a few days in San Jose, for example, this book (and many others) plainly tell you it's a dump and you'd want to get out as fast as possible. And they're right.Cons:- No hotel/restaurant recommendations. I had no problem with it, since I prefer to use trip adviser anyway. This is actually a pro: the book is already heavy and long as it is. The link to the author's website did not work at the time of this review.- Limited number of suggestions for each location. While the author lists his top 5-6 recommendations in places like Arenal, information on smaller attractions (good for your 3rd, 4th days) are missing. This is where the Eyewitness guide helped.

I have pretty much every guide book ever written for Costa Rica and travel there 2-3 times per year. But I thought I'd try this new one. The production is very nice. The pictures are absolutely beautiful. But is is severely lacking in details for lodging options and restaurants. It seems the author has decided to leave alost all of these details out and direct any further inquiries to his website. While the book is a decent read while at home I'll leave it there when I actually go on a trip.