This group has been great for advice in the past to trying again. Looking at Costa Rica. How difficult is it to do without joining a tour? Looking for a week or so, snorkeling, maybe a trip to turtles and rainforest. Thoughts? Advice?

One of the best rain forests in the world is in Costa Rica. Parque Nacional Corcovado has 2.5% of the world's biodiversity, which is one of the largest in the world (comparable to the Amazon).
It's pretty hard to get to though, as it's at the very South western part of the country. It was only open to the public within the past decade so it's still very remote and fairly untouched.
When we went back in March we saw coaties, crocodiles, sloths,bats, different types of monkeys, and even rescued a bunch of baby sea turtles that had just hatched and coaties were digging them up. We ran the survivors to the ocean. It was one of the best overall experiences I've ever been on!
Also if you're on the pacific side, Manuel Antonio Park is neat to check out too.

Parque Nacional Corcovado is their official fb page. I tagged the wrong one

There’s an online travel agency called Anywhere Costa Rica that helped us plan a trip (not a tour group) a long time ago. We were very happy with their services. The prices were no more than booking directly and they organized the transportation from place to place. They can also book your hotels and activities if you want, but it’s customizable.

Renée W thanks! Will give them a look.

It’s easy! You definitely don’t need a tour. You will love it!

Tania yeah honestly the hardest part was just getting out of San Jose. Driving around that city was sketchy but it was a fun challenge.

Yikes!

Yes! The traffic! And the honking! Lol!

This is a great site with a lot of helpful tips and tricks on CR.
https://www.facebook.com/Mytanfeetcom/

I'm here now with my family. Started. San Jose and drive to Nosara. We are in monteverde now and heading to La Fortuna. Easy to do all my yourself. You can arrange guided tours once you know where. Online reviews are are a great tool. Hardest part so far is the driving. Most are paved highways, but less travelled areas are gravel and it makes for slow driving. Strongly recommend bringing an unlocked cell phone, buy a SIM card at the airport and use google maps to navigate. Good luck!!

We found the buses to be great. Affordable, safe and comfortable. It’s more expensive but we also rented cars in some places. We were doing travel by postcard - you look at postcards and go “let’s go there”. That is totally doable in CR. We loved the cloud forest.

We stayed in 2 locations. We took shuttle buses which were not cheap. The first place was at hotel bula bula. Wonderful, in a jungle right next to beach. Just a shirt water taxi to tamarindo. One of our favourite places in the world so far. The second spot was in coco beah. It wasnt nearly as nice but a short cab ride to two very beautiful beaches

We’re in Costa Rica right now and booked everything through #KimKim

Tarina thanks, I am checking out Kimkim right now as I am planning a trip. Thanks for the tip! Have an amazing rest of your vacation!