Same stunning scenery. A fraction of the price. And a whole lot more besides.
Switzerland is magnificent. Nobody is going to argue with that. The snow-capped Alps, the crystal-clear lakes, the immaculate villages – it is, without question, one of Europe’s most iconic destinations. But here’s the thing: it is also eye-wateringly expensive, increasingly crowded, and, whisper it, a little predictable.
So what if we told you there’s a country that gives you virtually everything Switzerland offers, throws in an Adriatic coastline, serves food and wine that rivals northern Italy, runs with the quiet efficiency of Austria, and costs a fraction of the price?
Meet Slovenia. Europe’s best-kept secret and quite possibly its greatest underrated travel destination.
1. The Price Difference Is Extraordinary
Let’s start with the numbers, because they really are remarkable. Switzerland consistently ranks as one of the most expensive countries in the world for travellers, with average daily costs that can leave even seasoned holidaymakers wincing. A coffee in Zurich. A glass of wine in Geneva. A hotel in Zermatt. It all adds up, and adds up fast.
Slovenia, by contrast, offers outstanding value without ever feeling budget. You’ll find beautifully designed boutique hotels, exceptional restaurants, well-maintained roads and hiking trails, and a tourism infrastructure that feels genuinely world-class – all at prices that are typically 50 to 70 per cent lower than Switzerland. Families, couples, and solo travellers alike will find that their money goes considerably further here, leaving more in the kitty for experiences rather than simply keeping up with the cost of being there.
For travellers who want the Alpine dream without the Alpine price tag, Slovenia is quite simply unbeatable.
2. The Food and Wine Will Genuinely Surprise You
One of the most delightful discoveries awaiting first-time visitors to Slovenia is just how seriously the country takes its food and wine. Bordering Italy to the west, Slovenia has absorbed centuries of culinary influence from its neighbour, and the results are spectacular.
The Vipava Valley and the Karst region produce wines, particularly orange wines and robust reds, that are earning genuine international acclaim. Slovenian olive oil from the Istrian coast has won global awards. The country’s chefs are creative, ingredient-led, and deeply proud of their local produce, which ranges from wild mushrooms and truffles to freshwater fish, cured meats and outstanding cheeses.
Ljubljana, Slovenia’s charming capital, has a restaurant scene that punches well above its weight, with several establishments that would hold their own in any major European city. For food and wine lovers, Slovenia is not a compromise on Italy – it is a magnificent alternative with its own distinct and deeply rewarding identity.
3. The Infrastructure Is Quietly Impressive
One of the reasons Switzerland commands such a premium is its legendary infrastructure, the trains that run to the second, the spotless roads, the impeccable organisation. What many travellers don’t realise is that Slovenia offers a remarkably similar experience.
Having been part of the former Yugoslavia’s most prosperous republic, and having joined the European Union in 2004, Slovenia has developed infrastructure that feels much closer to Austria than to the Balkans. Roads are excellent, public transport is reliable, signage is clear, and the country is exceptionally well set up for tourism. Hiring a car and exploring independently is an absolute pleasure, and the compact size of the country, it is roughly the size of Switzerland’s Canton of Bern, means that you can cover an enormous amount of ground in a relatively short time.
4. The Mountain Scenery Is Every Bit as Spectacular
Here is perhaps the most important point of all for anyone considering Slovenia as an alternative to Switzerland: the landscapes are genuinely, breathtakingly stunning.
The Julian Alps in the north-west of the country offer dramatic mountain scenery that stands comparison with anything the Swiss Alps have to offer. Triglav National Park, home to Mount Triglav, Slovenia’s highest peak and a symbol of national pride, is a hiker’s paradise of glacial valleys, waterfalls, limestone plateaus and soaring peaks. In winter, ski resorts such as Kranjska Gora and Vogel offer excellent skiing without the queues and costs of their Swiss counterparts.
And then there is Lake Bled. Quite possibly one of the most photographed places in Europe, with its fairytale island church and clifftop castle reflected in impossibly turquoise water, Bled is the image that has put Slovenia firmly on the map for many travellers and rightly so. Lake Bohinj, nearby and considerably less visited, offers an equally beautiful but altogether more peaceful alternative for those who prefer their scenery without the selfie sticks.
5. It Even Has a Coastline
This is the detail that tends to genuinely surprise people. Switzerland, for all its magnificence, is landlocked. Slovenia is not.
The Slovenian Riviera, a short but utterly charming stretch of Adriatic coastline, offers the towns of Piran, Izola and Koper, each with its own distinct character and Venetian architectural heritage. Piran in particular is one of the most beautifully preserved medieval coastal towns in the whole of the Mediterranean, a labyrinth of narrow streets, elegant squares and waterfront restaurants that feels like stepping into another era.
It is a small coastline, certainly but it is a magnificent one, and it adds a dimension to a Slovenian holiday that Switzerland simply cannot match.
6. It Is Still Pleasingly Undiscovered
Slovenia welcomed around 6.5 million tourists in 2024. Switzerland, by comparison, welcomed over 39 million. That difference in visitor numbers is felt at every level of the travel experience – in the queues at popular sites, in the ease of finding accommodation, in the sense of space and authenticity that Slovenia consistently delivers.
This is a country that has not yet been overwhelmed by mass tourism. Its people are warm and welcoming, its culture is vibrant and proud, and its natural environment is treated with genuine care and respect. Slovenia was named European Green Capital and has long been celebrated for its commitment to sustainable tourism – an increasingly important consideration for the modern, conscious traveller.
The Verdict
Switzerland will always have its place. But for travellers who want Alpine grandeur, exceptional food and wine, world-class infrastructure, a sparkling Adriatic coastline and extraordinary value, all wrapped up in one of the most compact and perfectly formed countries in Europe, Slovenia is not just a reasonable alternative to Switzerland.
Introducing Flight Cancellation Protection: Fuel Crisis Cover – because your dream trip deserves to happen
Let’s be honest. The world of air travel has felt a little nerve-wracking lately.
With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East sending jet fuel prices soaring, we’re talking from $74 to a staggering $150 per barrel, airlines across Europe are under enormous financial pressure. Industry bosses have been naming names. Carriers have already collapsed. And if you’ve been sitting on the fence about booking your next big adventure because you’re worried about what might happen to your flights, we completely understand.
But here’s the thing. We think that uncertainty shouldn’t stand between you and the trip you’ve been dreaming about. So we’ve done something about it.
From 6th May 2026, Untravelled Paths is offering something we’re genuinely excited about: the ability to book your trip with complete, total, unshakeable peace of mind.
Add our Flight Cancellation Protection to your booking, from just £49 per person, and if your flight is cancelled due to the fuel crisis, geopolitical disruption, or airspace restrictions linked to the Middle East conflict, you won’t lose a penny of your trip cost. Simple as that.
You can choose between a full refund or a free postponement to any available date within the next 24 months. No complicated claims process, no battling with an airline’s customer service team, no nasty surprises. Just a straightforward promise from us to you.
Why Now? Why Us?
We’ve been watching the aviation situation closely, and we know what it means for travellers who want to get out and explore the world. The collapse of Ascend Airways in late April was a wake-up call for a lot of people. When carriers start going under with little warning, the question “will my flight actually operate?” becomes very real indeed.
Rather than simply crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, we decided to put our money where our mouth is. We believe that extraordinary adventures shouldn’t be put on hold because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Our new cover is our way of saying: we’ve got you. Book the trip. We’ll handle the what-ifs.
How Does It Work?
It couldn’t be simpler:
More than 14 days before departure? Choose a full refund of your trip cost, or postpone to any available date within 24 months. Entirely your call.
Between 48 hours and 14 days before departure? Free postponement to any available date within 24 months. We’ll work hard to find you the perfect alternative.
The cover fee? Scaled fairly to the value of your trip:
Trip Cost Per Person
Cover Fee Per Person
Up to £1,000
£49
£1,001 – £2,500
£89
£2,501 – £4,000
£129
£4,001 and above
£175
Add it at the time of booking, or within 7 days of your booking date, and you’re covered. Refunds are processed within 20 working days of receiving your documentation. Told you it was simple.
A Word of Advice While We’re Here
Alongside our new cover, we’d strongly recommend two extra steps to make sure you’re fully protected:
Book your flights by credit card. Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, credit card purchases between £100 and £30,000 may be refundable if a company collapses – giving you an additional layer of protection for the flight cost itself (our cover protects your trip cost with us, not the flights).
Take out travel insurance that includes SAFI. Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance is specifically designed to cover you if your airline goes under, and right now it’s more relevant than ever.
So What Are You Waiting For?
There has never been a better time to book an Untravelled Paths adventure, and now there’s genuinely no reason not to. Whether you’ve had your eye on a remote trek through the Caucasus, an immersive cultural journey across Central Asia, or perhaps something from our brand-new Americas collection (more on that very soon!), you can book with confidence knowing that we’ve taken the uncertainty off the table.
The world is still out there. Still extraordinary. Still waiting for you.
Full terms and conditions for Flight Cancellation Protection: Fuel Crisis Cover are available on our website. Cover must be added at the time of booking or within 7 days of the original booking date, and cannot be purchased once a cancellation notice has been issued by an airline. This cover applies to your Untravelled Paths trip cost only and is not a regulated insurance product.
Summer is coming. And whether you’re ready to admit it or not, that quiet, insistent voice in the back of your head, the one that keeps asking whether you really want to spend another August doing the same thing, is getting louder. We think it’s worth listening to.
At Untravelled Paths, summer is the season when our European adventures come into their own. Long days, warm evenings, markets in full swing, landscapes at their most vivid, and the extraordinary feeling of being somewhere that genuinely surprises you. This year, we want to make the case for five destinations that will do exactly that — places that are not just beautiful, but genuinely, memorably extraordinary.
Here’s what’s waiting for you this summer.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Europe’s Most Underrated Country
There is a moment, somewhere on the streets of Sarajevo’s Baščaršija — the 15th-century Ottoman bazaar at the heart of the old city — when it hits you. The minarets, the copper merchants, the smell of Bosnian coffee being prepared in the old way, the call to prayer overlapping with the sound of church bells from around the corner. You are in a city unlike any other in Europe, and you wonder why you haven’t been here sooner.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is, quite simply, the most underrated country on the continent. Three major religions — Islam, Roman Catholic, and Serbian Orthodox — come together here to form a vibrant blend of cultures, and the country is rich in history, culture, and natural beauty. Sarajevo, its extraordinary capital, is a city where World War One began (the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 took place on these streets), where the Winter Olympics were held in 1984, and where the people carry the recent memory of a siege that lasted 1,400 days in the 1990s — and discuss it with a candour and warmth that is genuinely humbling.
But Bosnia is also a country of extraordinary natural beauty. The jade-green waters of the Neretva Canyon slice through craggy mountains in one of the most spectacular drives in the Balkans. The Kravica Waterfalls — a series of cascading falls in a lush green amphitheatre — are one of those places that makes you feel you’ve discovered something. And Mostar, with its magnificent Stari Most bridge arching over the turquoise Neretva River, is a town that looks like it was plucked from the pages of a fairytale.
The journey from Sarajevo to Mostar passes through the Blagaj Tekke — a 16th-century Dervish monastery built at the base of a cliff beside the turquoise spring of the Buna River — a place that feels almost surreal in its stillness. Watch divers plunge from the Old Bridge into the river below, eat ćevapi (Bosnian minced meat fingers) at a local restaurant, and sit with a cup of Bosnian coffee that takes a very particular technique to prepare correctly. This is the kind of travel that stays with you.
The bonus: Bosnia sits at the heart of one of Europe’s most rewarding travel regions. It combines beautifully with Croatia to the west or Montenegro to the south — making it easy to build a multi-country Balkan adventure from a single trip.
Romania: Four Countries in One
Romania is a country that consistently astonishes the travellers who make it there — and consistently baffles those who haven’t yet made it, because how can one country contain so much?
Our Romania experience takes in four entirely distinct worlds. In Transylvania, you’ll explore the charming Saxon towns of Brașov, Sibiu, and Sighișoara — the birthplace of the real Vlad the Impaler, who inspired Dracula — with their colourful medieval squares, fortified churches, and fairy-tale citadels rising above cobbled streets. Bran Castle, perched ominously on its rocky outcrop, and the royal splendour of Peleș Castle offer two of the most atmospheric historic visits in Eastern Europe.
Then there are the bears.
The Carpathians are home to the largest brown bear population in Europe, numbering up to 8,000 individuals. From a carefully positioned wildlife hide in the forests above the valley, you watch in silence as the bears emerge at dusk — wild, unhurried, magnificent — sometimes accompanied by wild boar, foxes, and the occasional wolf moving through the trees. It is one of the most genuinely thrilling wildlife experiences available anywhere in Europe, and it is happening right here, a couple of hours from Bucharest.
Further north, Maramureș is Romania’s most authentically preserved region: a landscape of wooden churches built without a single nail (several of them UNESCO World Heritage Sites), horse-drawn carts on country lanes, and villages where the pace of life follows the rhythm of the seasons rather than the clock. Romania’s famed rural villages are incredibly authentic, as if time forgot them, and the locals continue to live a slow and simple life like that of their ancestors before them.
And finally, the Danube Delta — one of Europe’s great wilderness areas, accessible only by boat, home to over 300 species of birds including the world’s largest colony of Dalmatian pelicans, and quite simply one of the most beautiful and peaceful places we know. We’ve written about Mila 23 and the extraordinary story of this place at length on the blog — and in summer, with the delta in full bloom and the pelicans gliding overhead, it is at its most magical.
Romania. You genuinely will not believe it.
Montenegro: Europe’s Best-Kept Coastal Secret
Montenegro is tiny — smaller than Wales — and it packs more extraordinary scenery per square kilometre than almost anywhere else on earth. The name means “Black Mountain,” which tells you something about the drama of the landscape: this is a country where the Adriatic coast, pine-forested mountains, glacial lakes, and ancient walled towns coexist in improbable proximity.
The Bay of Kotor — often called Europe’s southernmost fjord — is one of the great visual spectacles of the Mediterranean. The UNESCO-listed Old Town of Kotor sits at the head of the bay, its medieval walls climbing the steep mountain behind it, its honey-grey cobbled streets full of churches, cats, and excellent restaurants. Sail across the bay to the tiny island church of Our Lady of the Rocks — built, according to local legend, on a foundation of rocks thrown into the sea by sailors returning safely from voyages — and you’ll understand why Montenegro keeps ending up on “most beautiful places in Europe” lists.
Then there is Sveti Stefan. A 15th-century fortified fishing village that was converted into one of the Adriatic’s most exclusive addresses, this tiny islet connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway is perhaps the single most photographed sight in the country — and the surrounding beaches, with the pink islet glowing against the turquoise Adriatic, are every bit as spectacular as the postcards suggest.
For those willing to venture inland, Durmitor National Park offers rugged wilderness of limestone peaks, glacial lakes, deep canyons, and alpine meadows — a landscape that many visitors immediately compare to the Dolomites, but one you can enjoy with virtually zero crowds. The Tara Canyon — the second deepest canyon in the world — offers white-water rafting of extraordinary drama.
The bonus: Montenegro’s geography makes it one of Europe’s finest multi-country hubs. It combines effortlessly with Croatia to the north, Bosnia to the northeast, Albania to the south, and — for the more ambitious itinerary — even Italy by ferry from the port of Bar.
Slovenia: Small Country, Extraordinary Everything
Slovenia sometimes feels like Europe’s best-kept secret: a country the size of Wales that somehow contains the Julian Alps, a UNESCO-listed cave system, a perfectly preserved medieval capital, and a lake so photogenic it seems almost deliberately designed to make you believe in fairy tales.
That lake is, of course, Lake Bled. Nestled in the foothills of the Julian Alps, this fairytale lake has emerald waters, a charming central island, and a medieval castle perched on a cliff — and it’s been consistently ranked among the most beautiful lakes in the world. In summer, you can swim in the crystalline water, row or paddle across to Bled Island on a traditional pletna boat (a flat-bottomed gondola unique to this lake, poled by local oarsmen), climb to Bled Castle for views that stretch across the Julian Alps, and ring the church bell on the island — local legend holds that wishes made when the bell rings come true.
For a sunrise hot air balloon experience over Lake Bled — floating higher and higher until you’re among the clouds and looking out across international borders into Austria and Italy — this is one of those things that makes you feel very small and very fortunate simultaneously.
The Vintgar Gorge — a kilometre-long canyon of turquoise water traversed by wooden walkways and bridges, ending at a thundering waterfall — is one of those natural spectacles where you run out of superlatives very quickly. And Triglav National Park, beyond the lake, offers some of the finest mountain hiking in the Alps — with significantly fewer people than the Austrian or Swiss alternatives.
Ljubljana, Slovenia’s compact and charming capital, is the perfect starting point: a city of flower-draped bridges, riverside café culture, a castle overlooking the rooftops, and a food scene that punches well above its weight for a city of fewer than 300,000 people. And for those who want to go underground, the Postojna Cave — 24 kilometres of remarkable caverns, navigated partly by electric train — and the extraordinary Predjama Castle, built into the mouth of a cave halfway up a cliff face, are experiences unlike anything else in Europe.
Slovenia is extraordinarily compact. You can genuinely experience the best of it in a week, which makes it perfect as a standalone short break or as part of a broader Balkan adventure.
Turkey: Three Countries in One Trip
Turkey is the destination that makes people wonder why they waited so long. It is vast, extraordinarily varied, and layered with thousands of years of civilisation in a way that no country in Europe can quite match. Our Turkey experience takes in three entirely distinct worlds, each one spectacular in its own right.
Istanbul is one of the world’s great cities — the only metropolis that sits across two continents, where 2,600 years of Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman history layer upon each other in ways that are still, somehow, surprising. The Hagia Sophia was originally a cathedral built in 537 AD, then a mosque, then a museum, and is now a mosque again — one of humanity’s greatest architectural achievements. The Blue Mosque, the Topkapı Palace, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Market, the ferry crossing of the Bosphorus at sunset with the city’s minarets silhouetted against an orange sky — Istanbul is inexhaustible, and you will leave it wanting more time.
Cappadocia is something else entirely. The surreal landscape of fairy chimneys, cave dwellings, and underground cities creates experiences available nowhere else on earth. You stay in a cave hotel — hewn from the volcanic tufa that forms these extraordinary formations, surprisingly luxurious, and genuinely otherworldly — and you wake before dawn for the hot air balloon ride that consistently features on every “once-in-a-lifetime experiences” list ever written. Up to 150 balloons launch simultaneously at dawn over the fairy chimney landscape, floating in near-silence above a landscape that looks like it belongs on another planet. It is magnificent.
And then there is the Turkish Riviera — and the gulets. A gulet is a traditional Turkish wooden sailing yacht, handcrafted from mahogany, pine, and teak, following a design developed for these waters in Byzantine times. Sailing the Turquoise Coast aboard one of these beautiful vessels — anchoring in hidden coves, swimming in translucent water over the ruins of ancient Lycian cities, hiking to rock tombs carved into clifftops 2,000 years ago, eating extraordinary meals prepared by an on-board chef and served on deck as the sun goes down — is one of those experiences that redefines what a holiday can be. Pine-forested coasts scented by wild herbs, tiny seaside villages, Lycian rock tombs, ruined Byzantine monasteries, ancient Roman baths, and towering Greek amphitheatres all accessible only by boat and foot.
Turkey is extraordinary value, extraordinarily hospitable, and extraordinarily beautiful. It is, in the truest sense, an untravelled path — even if it’s been there all along.
This Summer, Make It Count
These five destinations have one thing in common: they surprise people. Not because they’re unknown — though some come close — but because they deliver something that the more familiar summer destinations simply cannot: the feeling that you’ve genuinely experienced somewhere, rather than just visited it.
Whether you’re drawn to the history of Bosnia, the wildlife of Romania, the coastline of Montenegro, the mountain lakes of Slovenia, or the extraordinary variety of Turkey, we’re ready to help you plan the trip.
Get in touch with the Untravelled Paths team today and let’s start building your summer adventure. We know all five of these destinations personally and deeply — the best places to stay, the moments not to miss, the hidden corners that make the difference. We’d love to share them with you.
Summer 2026 is calling. Let’s make it one you’ll talk about for years.
We’ve Just Arrived in the Americas and Guatemala Is Everything We Hoped For.
Something rather significant has been happening at Untravelled Paths. After years of bringing you extraordinary adventures across Africa and Europe, we’ve officially expanded into the Americas. And while Costa Rica was our first foray into this breathtaking part of the world, Guatemala has arrived to offer something altogether different, a destination that gets deep under your skin, not just through its landscapes, but through its people, its history, and its extraordinary, living, breathing Maya culture.
Right now, Central and South America represent one of the most compelling regions on earth for travellers who want something genuinely meaningful. The ancient civilisations here are not relics, they are living traditions, spoken languages, woven textiles, and sacred ceremonies still observed today. The landscapes are dramatic to the point of improbability, volcanoes rising from highland lakes, jungle canopies concealing cities older than Rome, cobblestone streets laid by the Spanish in the 16th century and still walked by Maya women in traditional dress.
Why now? Because Guatemala is at a wonderful sweet spot for travel. The infrastructure for thoughtful, responsible tourism has never been better. Direct flights connect easily with the UK and Europe via a single stop. Yet the country retains an authenticity that is becoming increasingly rare, a place where indigenous culture hasn’t been flattened into performance for visitors, but remains genuinely, proudly, daily life.
Our new Guatemala adventure visits four extraordinary destinations: Antigua, Lake Atitlán, Chichicastenango, and Flores, each one offering a different dimension of this remarkable country. Together, they paint a portrait of a civilisation that is simultaneously ancient and entirely alive.
Antigua: Where Colonial Grandeur Meets Mountain Life
The first thing you notice about Antigua is the volcanoes. Three of them ring the city: Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango, their peaks rising above the rooftops in various states of drama. Fuego, as its name suggests (“fire”), puffs smoke intermittently throughout the day, a constant reminder that you are somewhere the earth itself is still active.
Antigua is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its colonial architecture is among the best preserved in all of Latin America. Founded in 1543 as the third Spanish colonial capital of Central America, it was largely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1773, after which the Spanish authorities ordered the capital moved to what is now Guatemala City. Many residents refused to leave. The ruins of their churches and convents remained. And today, those earthquake-damaged structures and their crumbling baroque facades draped in bougainvillea, their roofless naves open to the sky and are among the most hauntingly beautiful sights in the Americas.
Walking Antigua is a joy that requires no particular agenda. The cobblestone streets are lined with pastel-painted colonial mansions whose doorways open onto hidden courtyards with bougainvillea-covered fountains. The Arch of Santa Catalina, an iconic 17th-century archway spanning the street with a clock tower above, the perfect cone of Volcán de Agua framed in the background, is one of those views that stops you mid-stride and makes you reach for your camera. The Parque Central, where the Cathedral of Santiago stands in dignified ruin beside the restored Palace of the Captains General, is the beating heart of the city, and the best place to simply sit, watch the world go by, and absorb the extraordinary atmosphere.
Beyond the architecture, Antigua offers some of the finest cultural experiences in Central America. A cooking class with a local family, visiting the market first to select the chillies, corn, and spices, then learning to prepare traditional dishes like pepián (a rich, pumpkin-seed-based stew) and tamales and is one of the most intimate ways to understand a place. The city’s chocolate scene is extraordinary: Guatemala’s cacao heritage goes back to the Maya, and workshops in Antigua let you trace the whole journey from bean to bar. And the coffee is, genuinely, among the best in the world, Antigua’s volcanic soil and high altitude produce beans of exceptional quality, and a coffee tour through the surrounding farms offers both spectacular scenery and a lesson in one of Guatemala’s defining industries.
For the adventurous, Acatenango volcano offers one of the great hikes in Central America, a demanding ascent that rewards with close-up views of Fuego erupting across the valley, ash and fire glowing against the night sky from the summit camp.
Lake Atitlán: The Most Beautiful Lake in the World
Aldous Huxley, after visiting in 1934, famously declared Lake Atitlán “too much of a good thing.” We understand exactly what he meant.
No photograph adequately prepares you for it. The lake formed in the caldera of an ancient super-volcano some 80,000 years ago, stretches 18 kilometres across and plunges to a depth of 340 metres, making it the deepest lake in Central America. Three enormous volcanoes: Atitlán, Tolimán, and San Pedro, line its southern shore, their reflections shimmering in the impossibly blue water. And around its edges, twelve different Maya villages each maintain their own traditions, their own dialect of the K’iche’ or Tz’utujil language, their own distinctive patterns of woven dress.
There are no roads circling the lake. To move between villages, you travel by lancha, the wooden motorboats that dart across the water throughout the day, connecting communities that have existed in this astonishing setting for centuries. Each crossing is a miniature spectacle: the volcanoes shifting in perspective, the light changing on the water, the villages appearing around headlands like illustrations in a story.
The villages are the real revelation. San Juan La Laguna is a place of quiet creative pride, its streets lined with murals painted by local artists, its weaving cooperatives run by Tz’utujil Maya women who use traditional backstrap looms and natural plant-based dyes to create textiles of extraordinary beauty. Watching a weaver work the rhythm of her loom, the precision of the patterns, the colours she selects from plants grown in her own garden, is a genuinely moving experience. You come to understand that these textiles are not merely products. They are visual language, each pattern carrying meaning, each colour tied to a village, a lineage, a story.
Santiago Atitlán is the largest and perhaps most culturally significant of the lake villages. It is the seat of the Tz’utujil Maya and the home of Maximón, a unique deity formed from the fusion of ancient Maya spirituality, Catholic saints, and colonial-era mythology, who lives in a different house each year under the stewardship of a local brotherhood. Visiting Maximón following the instructions of a local guide to find whichever house he currently occupies, involves entering a room thick with copal incense, candles, and offerings of rum and cigarettes, while local shamans conduct private rituals alongside curious visitors. It is one of the most distinctive cultural encounters in all of Central America: a living demonstration of how indigenous Guatemalan spirituality absorbed and subverted five centuries of Spanish Catholicism rather than being destroyed by it.
The light at Lake Atitlán in the late afternoon, when the volcanoes turn purple and the water goes still and the cooking fires in the villages send wisps of smoke into the golden air, is something you carry home with you.
Chichicastenango: The Market at the Heart of the Maya World
Every Thursday and Sunday, something extraordinary happens in the mountain town of Chichicastenango.
The streets explode.
Vendors arrive before dawn, many of them having hiked for hours through the surrounding highlands and by the time the mist clears from the valley, the Chichicastenango market is in full, extraordinary, overwhelming life. It is the largest indigenous market in Central America, and one of the most authentic in the entire world. Around 99% of the town’s population of 72,000 are K’iche’ Maya, and the market has been a trading hub for this community since long before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. It continues, unchanged in its essential nature, today.
What you encounter is not a market designed for tourists. It is a market designed for Maya people, who happen to tolerate tourists with considerable good humour. The women who travel here from surrounding villages wear the traditional embroidered blouses and woven skirts of their particular community colours and patterns that vary by village, so that an experienced eye can identify where someone is from at a glance. They spread their goods on the ground or on makeshift stalls: handwoven textiles, carved wooden masks, pottery, flowers, incense, traditional healing remedies, corn, beans, chillies, and fruits. The smells copal resin, frying tortillas, woodsmoke, tropical flowers and layer upon each other in a way that is somehow both overwhelming and entirely intoxicating.
At the centre of the market stands the Church of Santo Tomás, and here Chichicastenango reveals its deepest mystery. Built by the Spanish in the 17th century atop a Maya pyramid, the church was constructed with local labour and those labourers, it is said, quietly incorporated their own religious symbolism into the building. The result is one of the most extraordinary examples of cultural syncretism in the Americas. Today, on market days, the steps of Santo Tomás are occupied simultaneously by vendors selling flowers and candles, by K’iche’ Maya shamans burning copal incense and performing traditional ceremonies, and by Catholic priests conducting masses inside. The smoke rises into the morning air from all sides. It is as if the building itself is a living argument between two spiritual systems that have, over five centuries, learned to coexist.
The Popol Vuh, the sacred Maya text that narrates the story of creation, the great literary achievement of indigenous America, one of the few surviving documents to have escaped the systematic destruction of Maya culture by Spanish missionaries and was discovered here, at Santo Tomás Church. Standing on those steps, watching the copal smoke curl upward and listening to the K’iche’ language spoken all around you, it is impossible not to feel the weight of that history.
Away from the church, the market is simply a delight: chaotic, colourful, alive, generous. Bargaining is expected and warmly conducted. The food stalls serve fresh tortillas, tamales wrapped in banana leaves, fried plantains, and steaming bowls of local specialities that you’ll struggle to identify but will almost certainly enjoy. And the Chichicastenango cemetery, considered one of the most vibrantly coloured in the world, its above-ground tombs painted in whites, turquoises, and yellows that carry specific Maya spiritual significance, an extraordinary, quietly moving place that most visitors pass without realising its importance.
Flores & Tikal: Where the Jungle Holds Ancient Secrets
The journey north to Flores feels like crossing into a different world. The landscape flattens, the air grows heavier and hotter, and the dense lowland jungle of the Petén closes in on either side of the road. By the time you arrive at the causeway connecting Flores to the mainland, you have the distinct sense of having arrived somewhere at the edge of the known.
Flores is a delight. A tiny island town, small enough to walk around in under 20 minutes, sits on Lake Petén Itzá. Its buildings are painted in pastel yellows, blues, and pinks that glow in the late afternoon sun. Narrow streets wind between restaurants, small boutique hotels, and local bars where you can sit with a cold Gallo beer and watch the lake change colour as evening falls. It is one of those towns that is easy to love immediately and genuinely hard to leave.
But Flores is really a base for something that has no equal in all of Central America.
Tikal.
Ninety minutes north through the jungle, at the heart of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest protected tropical forests north of the Amazon, sees ruins of one of the greatest cities in the ancient world emerge from the trees. Tikal was founded around 400 BC and grew over the following centuries into a metropolis of perhaps 100,000 people, a centre of political power, astronomical knowledge, artistic achievement, and military might. At its peak in the 8th century AD, it dominated a vast territory and traded with civilisations as distant as Teotihuacán in central Mexico. Then, like so many Maya cities, it was gradually abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle over the following centuries until, in the 20th century, archaeologists began to cut back the undergrowth and reveal what lay beneath.
What they found was extraordinary. And what visitors find today, arriving at dawn as the jungle wakes around them, howler monkeys calling from the canopy, toucans moving through the mist is an experience that defies easy description.
The temples of Tikal rise above the jungle canopy, their stepped pyramids reaching heights of 70 metres. Temple IV, the tallest pre-Columbian structure in the Americas, offers from its summit the view that George Lucas used as a stand-in for an alien planet in the original Star Wars, a sea of green punctuated by grey stone peaks disappearing into morning mist. It is a view that makes you feel very small, and very fortunate.
The sunrise tour departing Flores at 3am, arriving in the dark jungle to the sound of unseen creatures, waiting on the summit of Temple IV as the sky slowly lightens and the howler monkeys begin their tremendous dawn chorus, is among the most genuinely extraordinary experiences available to a traveller in the whole of the Americas. We would go so far as to say it is one of the finest experiences on any of our trips anywhere in the world.
Around the great plazas, the ceiba trees, sacred to the Maya as the tree of life and stand sentinel over stone stelae carved with hieroglyphs that narrate the deeds of kings long dead. Spider monkeys swing between branches overhead. Coatis root in the undergrowth. The air smells of earth and vegetation and something ancient. And you walk these paths understanding that beneath almost every tree-covered mound around you lies an unexcavated structure that Tikal National Park has only barely scratched the surface of what lies beneath the jungle floor.
The Perfect Combination: Guatemala with Belize or Costa Rica
Guatemala is extraordinary on its own. But it also sits at the heart of one of the richest travel regions on earth and combining it with a neighbouring destination creates a trip of truly exceptional breadth and variety.
Flores and Belize make a particularly natural pairing. From Flores, the border with Belize is only a few hours away, opening up the Belize Barrier Reef, the second-largest coral reef system in the world and the extraordinary Mayan ruins of Caracol and Lamanai, and some of the finest jungle lodges in Central America. Ancient history and world-class snorkelling, back to back.
Guatemala and Costa Rica offer a different kind of combination, one pairing deep cultural immersion with extraordinary wildlife. The contrasts between the two countries are part of what makes the combination so compelling: the highland Maya world of Guatemala, with its markets and volcanoes and colonial cities, followed by the extraordinary biodiversity of Costa Rica’s rainforests, cloud forests, and Pacific coast.
We can organise both combinations for you, seamlessly and with the same care and attention we bring to every Untravelled Paths experience. A combined itinerary can be as short as ten days or as long as three weeks and every element will be chosen with the same passion for authenticity and quality that you’d expect from us.
Ready to Experience Guatemala for Yourself?
This adventure has quickly become one of our very favourites in the Untravelled Paths portfolio. The combination of extraordinary cultural depth, dramatic natural beauty, and genuine, warm Guatemalan hospitality makes it a trip that our guests talk about long after they’ve come home.
If Guatemala has been on your list and it absolutely should be, we’d love to help you plan the trip. Get in touch with us today and we’ll start putting something together that’s built around you. And if you’d like a proper conversation about the itinerary and what to expect, we’d be delighted to schedule a Zoom call with one of our team and just say the word and we’ll find a time that suits.
Right Now Is the Best Time to Discover the Americas
Something rather wonderful is happening in the travel world. Alongside Africa and Asia, the Americas — Central and South — have emerged as one of the most compelling regions on earth for travellers who want something genuinely extraordinary. Ancient civilisations, extraordinary biodiversity, vibrant living cultures, world-class food, and landscapes so diverse they feel almost implausible — the Americas have it all. And Colombia, sitting at the crossroads of South America’s Andean highlands, Caribbean coast, Amazon basin, and Pacific shore, has it in extraordinary concentration.
This is why, as part of our exciting expansion into the Americas, Colombia was an obvious and irresistible choice. And why, having explored it in depth, we can tell you with complete confidence: this is one of the most remarkable countries on earth.
Colombia also has one of the most dramatic and heartening travel stories of the past two decades. A country that once made international headlines for all the wrong reasons has transformed itself into one of South America’s most dynamic, welcoming, and rewarding destinations. In 2026, Bogotá was officially named the world’s most authentic city for travellers according to the Travel Authenticity Index — analysing over 1.3 million reviews across 140+ cities. That is not a small thing. It reflects a country that has found its confidence, opened its doors, and is ready to show the world what it has always quietly known: that Colombia is extraordinary.
Four Holidays in One: Why Colombia Is Unlike Anywhere Else
Here is the thing about Colombia that strikes every traveller who visits for the first time: it doesn’t feel like one country. It feels like several.
Within a single two-week trip, you can find yourself in a high-altitude Andean capital buzzing with world-class museums, street art, and one of Latin America’s most exciting restaurant scenes. Then in the deep Amazon rainforest, navigating black-water channels by canoe, watching pink river dolphins surface beside the boat, and sleeping in a jungle lodge while caimans glide silently past on the waterway below. Then in a highland valley of improbable beauty, hiking through mist and wax palms on the steep slopes of a UNESCO-recognised coffee landscape. And finally on the Caribbean coast, in one of the most gloriously preserved colonial cities on earth, where Afro-Colombian rhythms pulse from flower-draped balconies and the sunsets over the sea are the kind that make you reach for words you don’t quite have.
That is exactly what our 14-night journey through Colombia offers. Four worlds. One country. And a trip that our guests consistently describe as feeling like four holidays packed into one extraordinary adventure.
Let us take you through each one.
Region 1: Bogotá — The World’s Most Authentic City
Bogotá sits at 2,600 metres above sea level in the heart of the Colombian Andes, ringed by green peaks that catch the clouds and give the city an atmosphere unlike any other capital in Latin America. It is a city of seven to eight million people — sprawling, complex, endlessly surprising, and buzzing with an energy that was recently recognised as the most genuinely local, authentic, and unfiltered of any city on earth.
The historic heart of Bogotá is La Candelaria — a neighbourhood of colonial churches, cobblestone streets, and university cafés, where street artists have turned entire building facades into extraordinary murals, and where some of the finest museums in all of Latin America sit within walking distance of each other.
The Museo del Oro is unmissable. Named by National Geographic as one of the most important museums in the world, it houses over 34,000 gold pieces and artefacts from Colombia’s pre-Hispanic indigenous cultures — a collection so extraordinary that the famous “Golden Raft” alone, a tiny masterpiece depicting a Muisca chief surrounded by his nobles on a ceremonial lake offering, is worth the entire journey. The Botero Museum, free to enter, contains not only the exuberant, oversized figures of Colombia’s most celebrated artist Fernando Botero — considered the most recognised and widely quoted living Latin American artist — but also a remarkable collection of international works including Picasso and Renoir.
But Bogotá’s culture extends far beyond its museums. The city hosts more than 18,000 public and private cultural events every year — from the world’s largest free music festival, Rock al Parque, to intimate jazz concerts, food festivals, and a dining scene that has quietly become one of the most exciting in the Americas. Chef Leonor Espinosa’s restaurant Leo — recently ranked among the World’s 50 Best Restaurants — serves a tasting menu that journeys through Colombia’s extraordinary biodiversity, using ingredients from indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities across the country. It is as close as you can get to eating the whole of Colombia in a single sitting.
Beyond the city itself, the extraordinary Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá — an underground cathedral built inside the tunnels of a working salt mine, 200 metres below ground — sits less than an hour from the capital. And the Paloquemao market, where Bogotá feeds itself from long before dawn, is one of those experiences that recalibrates your entire sense of what abundance looks like.
Bogotá is the Colombia that most travellers skip too quickly. It rewards those who slow down.
Region 2: The Amazon — Into the Lungs of the Earth
From Bogotá, a two-hour flight south takes you to Leticia — a small, friendly frontier town on the banks of the Amazon River at the southernmost tip of Colombia, where three countries converge: Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. You can walk across the border for ceviche in Peru and a caipirinha in Brazil, and return to Colombia before sunset. Nowhere else on earth is quite like it.
But Leticia is really a gateway, not a destination. The destination is the rainforest.
From the town, you travel by boat — the only way in — through channels of the Amazon River into the Amacayacú National Natural Park and the indigenous communities of Mocagua and San Martín de Amacayacú, where the jungle closes in on both sides of the water and the sounds of the forest take over. Howler monkeys announce themselves from the canopy. Macaws and toucans move between the trees. The air is thick, warm, alive with the weight of biodiversity — Colombia’s Amazon region alone is home to over 3,000 distinct species of fish, 195 species of mammals, and more plant species than most continents.
The days in the Amazon are extraordinary in their variety. You wake to dawn chorus — a symphony of birds and insects so layered and complex it takes several mornings to begin to distinguish individual voices. Guided canoe tours take you through narrow channels draped in green, past trees whose roots rise from the water in elaborate buttresses. Anacondas rest on banks. Poison dart frogs — vivid red and blue, impossibly small — sit on leaves at the water’s edge. Fishing for piranhas in the afternoon sun turns out to be surprisingly companionable, the small, fierce fish snapping at the bait with startling efficiency.
And then there are the pink river dolphins. The boto, or Amazon river dolphin, is one of those creatures that seems too extraordinary to be real — pink-skinned, long-beaked, deeply intelligent, surfacing beside the boat with a gentleness that belies its strength. Encountering them in the wild, in their river, on their terms, is one of those moments that stays with a traveller.
Night walks in the Amazon are extraordinary in their own right — the jungle transforming entirely after dark, torchlight finding tarantulas, caimans floating with red eyes at the waterline, and the extraordinary sounds of a forest that never truly sleeps.
The days here are unhurried and immersive in a way that no other experience on the trip quite matches. There is no WiFi. There is no phone signal. There is only the river, the jungle, and an astonishing quantity of life.
Region 3: The Coffee Region — Colombia’s Most Beautiful Landscape
From the deep Amazon to the Andean highlands — the contrast could not be more dramatic, or more exhilarating.
The Eje Cafetero, or Coffee Region, is a UNESCO-recognised cultural landscape stretching across the departments of Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío in the heart of Colombia. It is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited anywhere in the world: a landscape of steep green hillsides draped in coffee plants, misty cloud forests, rushing rivers, and brilliantly coloured colonial towns whose churches and plazas and painted timber facades seem almost too photogenic to be real.
The gateway to all of it is Salento — a small, spectacularly charming town of around 7,000 people, its streets lined with balconied colonial buildings painted in every shade of ochre, terracotta, sky blue, and emerald green. The central plaza, framed by wax-palm-lined hills and surrounded by cafés serving the finest coffee you have ever tasted in your life, is one of those places where you sit down for fifteen minutes and realise two hours have passed.
From Salento, vintage Willys jeeps — the iconic Colombian farm vehicles that have been rattling these mountain roads since the 1940s — take you into the Cocora Valley, and what you find there is one of the great natural spectacles of the Americas.
The Quindío wax palm is the national tree of Colombia. It grows nowhere else on earth in these concentrations. And it is enormous — the tallest palm species in the world, reaching heights of up to 60 metres, with a slender, solitary trunk that seems to go on forever before exploding into a feathery crown so high above your head that you have to tilt back to see it. To walk through the Cocora Valley at dawn, the valley floor still wrapped in mist, the palms rising from the cloud like something from a fairy tale — this is an experience that even the most well-travelled guests consistently describe as one of the most beautiful things they have ever seen.
The hike through the valley takes five to six hours at a gentle pace, moving through cloud forest, crossing streams on rope bridges, climbing to viewpoints that open out across the valley, and eventually descending back through the palms as the mist burns off in the morning sun. It is magnificent.
But the Coffee Region is more than scenery. The coffee itself — grown on family-owned fincas whose owners have been tending these slopes for generations — is among the finest in the world. A farm tour here is not a tourist experience tacked onto a commercial operation. It is a conversation with a family who has spent their lives understanding the relationship between altitude, rainfall, volcanic soil, and bean. You pick, you process, you roast, and then you drink — fresh, medium-roasted Colombian coffee in the place it was grown — and you understand, perhaps for the first time, what “coffee” is actually supposed to taste like.
The Eje Cafetero is also home to extraordinary bird life, thermal springs, and the snow-capped peaks of Los Nevados National Park — whose glaciers and high-altitude páramos offer hiking for the more adventurous. The region manages to be simultaneously deeply relaxing and endlessly stimulating. We could stay for a month.
Region 4: Cartagena and the Caribbean Coast
The final chapter of the Colombia journey is the most theatrical.
Cartagena de Indias — founded in 1533 by Spanish conquistadors who used it as the primary port for shipping gold and silver from the New World back to Europe — is one of the great colonial cities of the Americas. Simón Bolívar, during the Wars of Independence, awarded it the title it bears to this day: La Heroica. The Heroic City. Walk its streets and you understand exactly why.
The Walled City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site — a labyrinth of cobblestone streets, 400-year-old churches, flower-draped balconies, hidden courtyards, and pastel-painted mansions that glow in the Caribbean sun with a golden, almost theatrical perfection. The imposing walls themselves — built over two centuries to protect the city from pirates including Sir Francis Drake and the British Admiral Vernon — stretch for 11 kilometres around the old city, and walking them at sunset, with the Caribbean Sea turning pink on one side and the terracotta rooftops of the old town glowing on the other, is one of those moments that feels almost scripted in its beauty.
But Cartagena is much more than its colonial architecture. It is a city of Afro-Colombian culture in its fullest, most vibrant expression — a place shaped by five centuries of African, Indigenous, and Spanish influences weaving together into something entirely its own. The palenqueras — women from the nearby community of San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia’s first free African town founded by escaped enslaved people in 1603 — move through the streets in brilliant skirts and headscarves, balancing bowls of tropical fruit on their heads, their presence a living reminder of the history that built this city and the resilience of the people who survived it.
Getsemaní, the neighbourhood just outside the walls, is Cartagena’s creative soul — its streets covered in vivid murals, its plazas filled with music and dancing until late, its cafés and bars giving the city its Afro-Caribbean heartbeat. This is the neighbourhood that Gabriel García Márquez, Cartagena’s most famous literary son, might have imagined in Love in the Time of Cholera — magical, sensory, alive.
A day trip to the Rosario Islands — a chain of coral islands in the Caribbean, an hour by boat from Cartagena — offers turquoise water and white sand so fine it squeaks. Snorkelling through the coral reveals fish of extraordinary colour. And a boat excursion to El Totumo — a small mud volcano an hour north of the city where you float effortlessly in warm, mineral-rich grey mud while farmers from surrounding villages rub your shoulders with great enthusiasm — is one of those experiences that is so strange, and so Colombian, and so entirely delightful that you find yourself grinning about it for the rest of the trip.
The Caribbean food of Cartagena is a discovery entirely of its own: cazuela de mariscos (a creamy seafood stew with coconut milk, shrimp, mussels, and fish), arroz con coco (rice cooked in coconut milk), fresh ceviche, and the extraordinary abundance of tropical fruits — maracuyá, guanábana, lulo, corozo — that appear in juices and desserts and cocktails throughout the city. It is richer, spicier, and more deeply Caribbean than the food of the Colombian interior, and it is wonderful.
Cartagena is the perfect ending to a journey through Colombia. You have seen the country’s intellectual heart, its ancient wilderness, its coffee-growing soul, and now its sun-drenched, music-filled, historically resonant Caribbean face. You leave feeling that you have genuinely, thoroughly understood a place — which is the greatest thing travel can offer.
Practical Notes
Getting there: Fly into Bogotá (El Dorado International Airport), which is well connected from the UK and Europe via a single stop. Fly home from Cartagena, or return to Bogotá for onward connections.
The Amazon: Reached by a two-hour domestic flight from Bogotá to Leticia. No roads go there — the forest and river are the only way in.
The Coffee Region: Fly or take a comfortable coach from Bogotá to Pereira or Armenia, and continue to Salento by road. The journey itself is spectacular.
Cartagena: Served by its own international airport with direct connections to Bogotá and several international destinations.
Best time to visit: Colombia’s Caribbean coast (Cartagena) is best from December to April. The Amazon and Coffee Region are excellent year-round, though drier months vary by region. We’ll always advise you on the optimal timing for your journey.
Ready to Experience Colombia for Yourself?
This journey is one of the most ambitious and rewarding itineraries we offer anywhere in the Americas. The combination of Bogotá’s authenticity and cultural depth, the raw wildness of the Amazon, the otherworldly beauty of the Coffee Region, and the Caribbean warmth of Cartagena creates a trip that genuinely feels like four holidays — each one extraordinary in its own right, and together forming one of the finest South American adventures available.
Colombia is a country that has worked hard to welcome the world. And the world is beginning to notice.
Get in touch with the Untravelled Paths team today to find out more, request a detailed itinerary, or simply ask us anything about what to expect. And if you’d like a proper conversation about the trip, we’d be delighted to schedule a Zoom call with one of our team — just say the word and we’ll find a time that works for you.
Colombia is waiting. It is magnificent. And it is time to go.
We’ve Just Arrived in the Americas and We’ve Started With Costa Rica!
Something rather exciting has been happening at Untravelled Paths HQ. After years of bringing you extraordinary adventures across Africa, Europe, and Asia, we’ve officially expanded into the Americas. And when it came to choosing our very first destination in this magnificent part of the world, there really was only one contender.
Costa Rica.
Right now, Central and South America represent one of the most compelling regions on the planet for the kind of travel we care about: genuine wildlife, extraordinary landscapes, remarkable biodiversity, and experiences that simply cannot be found anywhere else. The Americas are having a moment, global travellers are waking up to the extraordinary depth and diversity on offer from the rainforests of the Amazon to the peaks of Patagonia. And Costa Rica, that small but staggeringly rich country on the sliver of land connecting two great continents, sits at the very heart of it.
Consider the numbers. Costa Rica covers less than 0.03% of the Earth’s surface, yet it is home to approximately 5% of all the world’s known species. Five per cent. In a country you can drive across in a few hours. More than 500,000 species: birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and marine creatures share this extraordinary place. The government has protected over 26% of its territory as national parks and reserves, making it one of the most ecologically committed nations on earth.
Why now? Because this is still the moment to go. Costa Rica’s wild places remain genuinely wild. The wildlife experiences here are among the most accessible on the planet and you don’t need to trek for weeks to find them. And the country’s extraordinary infrastructure for eco-tourism means you can have adventures that feel remote and genuinely immersive whilst still sleeping well and eating beautifully.
Our brand new Costa Rica adventure takes in five remarkable destinations: the vibrant capital San José, the canal-laced wilderness of Tortuguero, the volcanic landscapes of La Fortuna, the surf-washed Pacific coast of Tamarindo, and the legendary cloud forests of Monteverde. Each one is extraordinary in its own way. Together, they tell the story of one of the most biodiverse places on earth.
Here’s what awaits you.
San José: Your Gateway to the Wild
First impressions matter, and San José delivers. Costa Rica’s capital is a vibrant, energetic city that serves as the perfect introduction to this remarkable country — a place to absorb the culture, eat extraordinarily well, and begin to understand the nature that surrounds it on every side.
The city sits in the Central Valley, ringed by volcanoes and draped in a spring-like climate year-round. It is a city of colour, noise, flavour, and genuine warmth. The covered Mercado Central bustles with life; the Teatro Nacional, an extraordinary piece of 19th-century European architecture transplanted into the tropics, stands in elegant contrast to the mountains in the distance; and the neighbourhoods of Barrio Amón and Barrio Otoya reveal a colonial past in their ornate facades and tree-lined streets.
But San José is also a wildlife destination in its own right. The city’s butterfly gardens and wildlife rescue centres introduce you to the animals you’ll encounter throughout the trip; sloths, toucans, iridescent morpho butterflies, and more. The nearby Braulio Carrillo National Park, a vast cloud forest reserve just 30 minutes from the city, offers a first glimpse of the extraordinary ecosystems that make Costa Rica so special.
Arriving in San José is the moment the adventure begins. By the time you leave for Tortuguero, you’ll already be hooked.
Tortuguero: Costa Rica’s Little Amazon
There are no roads into Tortuguero. To reach it, you travel by boat through a network of canals, channels, and jungle waterways that wind through one of the most biodiverse landscapes in Central America. And that journey, gliding past towering trees draped in epiphytes, watching caimans on sunlit banks and herons standing motionless in the shallows, is itself one of the great wildlife experiences of the trip.
Tortuguero, whose name translates simply as “region of turtles”, is a narrow sandbar village on Costa Rica’s northeastern Caribbean coast, enveloped by nearly 200,000 acres of protected jungle, rainforest, swamps, and lagoon. The national park is home to 138 mammal species, 442 bird species, 118 reptile species, and 58 amphibian species, packed into a labyrinth of habitats that earned it the nickname “Costa Rica’s Little Amazon.”
On early morning canal boat tours, you drift beneath the canopy as the forest wakes around you. All three of Costa Rica’s monkey species; howler, spider, and white-faced capuchin move through the treetops above. Three-toed sloths hang in improbable positions from the branches. Spectacled caimans glare from the water’s surface. The basilisk lizard, nicknamed the “Jesus Christ lizard” for its extraordinary ability to sprint across the surface of the water and vanishes before you can properly register what you’ve seen. Toucans and green macaws call from somewhere in the canopy.
And then there are the turtles.
Tortuguero is one of the most important green sea turtle nesting sites in the entire Western Hemisphere. Between June and October, approximately 22,000 green sea turtles haul themselves up these beaches to lay their eggs in the sand. Witnessing this at night and standing quietly on the dark beach as a massive, ancient creature emerges from the surf and begins the slow, determined process of securing the next generation, is one of the most profoundly moving wildlife experiences available anywhere on earth. Leatherback and hawksbill turtles also nest here, and the conservation work of the Sea Turtle Conservancy, which has been studying and protecting these animals since 1959, means that every night tour contributes directly to their survival.
Tortuguero is also one of the few places in Costa Rica where jaguars patrol regularly, particularly during turtle nesting season when eggs and hatchlings provide easy meals. Camera traps regularly confirm their presence. Sightings are rare, but knowing they are out there in the darkness adds a genuine, thrilling wildness to the experience.
La Fortuna: In the Shadow of a Volcano
The perfectly conical peak of Arenal Volcano is one of the most beautiful and iconic sights in all of Costa Rica. Rising to 1,670 metres above the lush Northern Highlands, Arenal dominates the landscape from every angle, appearing and disappearing behind clouds, catching the light in ways that shift from moment to moment throughout the day. It is one of those rare natural landmarks that genuinely earns the word “majestic.”
La Fortuna, the small but lively town at Arenal’s eastern foot, is the adventure capital of Costa Rica. The surrounding landscape offers extraordinary wildlife alongside an almost comically comprehensive list of activities: hanging bridges through the rainforest canopy, night walks to find red-eyed tree frogs and kinkajous, river safaris along the Río Peñas Blancas, waterfall hikes, kayaking on Lake Arenal, and at the end of it all, soaking in geothermally heated hot springs under a sky full of tropical stars.
The wildlife around La Fortuna is exceptional. The hanging bridges of Mistico Park take you through primary rainforest at canopy level, where toucans and monkeys move through the trees at eye level and the perspectives on the forest are unlike anything you get from the ground. Night walks reveal the extraordinary nocturnal world of the cloud forest: red-eyed tree frogs (one of the most photographed creatures in Costa Rica, for very good reason) perched on leaves, sleeping sloths, fer-de-lance vipers, and the extraordinary sounds of insects and amphibians that form the rainforest’s night-time soundtrack.
The river safaris along the Río Peñas Blancas offer some of the finest wildlife watching in the region from the water. Caimans, river otters, Jesus Christ lizards, and a dazzling variety of bird species; including kingfishers, herons, anhingas, and the occasional osprey, make every journey down the river a new discovery. Howler monkeys announce themselves long before you see them, their extraordinary calls rolling through the trees like something out of prehistory.
And then, as the day winds down, you lower yourself into a pool of thermal water heated by the volcano beneath your feet, and Costa Rica delivers one of its quieter but equally extraordinary pleasures.
Tamarindo: Pacific Sunsets and Sea Turtles by Moonlight
Tamarindo is where the jungle meets the Pacific Ocean, and the result is one of the most beautiful and beguiling coastlines imaginable. A lively, surf-oriented town on the Guanacaste coast, Tamarindo sits within the Guanacaste province’s extraordinary tropical dry forest ecosystem, a landscape that is drier and more open than Costa Rica’s Caribbean and highland forests, but every bit as rich in wildlife.
The beaches here are legendary for surfing, and the warm, consistent waves of the Pacific attract learners and experienced surfers alike. But wildlife enthusiasts will find equal reason to fall in love with this stretch of coast.
Just north of Tamarindo lies Playa Grande, part of the Las Baulas National Marine Park, one of the most important leatherback sea turtle nesting sites on the Pacific coast of the Americas. The world’s largest sea turtle, leatherbacks can grow to over two metres in length and weigh as much as 900 kilograms. Watching one haul herself up the beach in the darkness, leaving tracks as wide as tyre treads in the sand, is an experience that stays with you permanently. Olive ridley sea turtles also nest along the nearby beaches, and guided night tours, strictly regulated to protect the animals and take small groups to witness the nesting with minimal disturbance.
The estuary at Tamarindo is a wildlife spectacle all of its own. Boat tours through the mangrove channels reveal American crocodiles lazing on sunlit banks (entirely ignoring the boats), howler monkeys crashing through the canopy overhead, herons and egrets fishing the shallows, and magnificent frigatebirds circling high above with wingspans of up to two metres. In the surf itself, brown pelicans dive-bomb the breaking waves in search of fish and one of those small, daily spectacles of the Costa Rican Pacific coast that you never quite get used to, however many times you see it.
Out on the water during snorkelling excursions to the Catalina Islands, you might find yourself sharing the sea with giant manta rays and sea turtles surfacing for air among the waves. The marine biodiversity of this coast is as extraordinary as anything on land.
Tamarindo is also a wonderful place simply to be. The sunsets here are staggering, vast, warm, photographic events that colour the sky over the Pacific in shades of orange and pink that seem almost impossibly vivid. After a day of wildlife and adventure, there are few finer places to watch the day end.
Monteverde: Where the Mist Holds Miracles
The road to Monteverde climbs steeply through the mountains, the air growing cooler and damper as you ascend, until suddenly the lowland heat is behind you and you are somewhere else entirely. Somewhere quieter, greener, and stranger. Somewhere that smells of moss and wet earth and something indefinable that is the cloud forest announcing itself.
Monteverde is one of the most celebrated natural destinations in Costa Rica, a high-altitude cloud forest that protects one of the most intact and biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Less than 0.26% of the earth’s land surface is covered by tropical cloud forest. Monteverde is one of the finest examples that remains. The mist that clings to the canopy here is not just atmospheric, it is functional, feeding the forest directly through the leaves and sustaining entire watersheds across Costa Rica.
The biodiversity within the reserve is extraordinary: over 100 species of mammals, more than 400 species of birds, 120 types of amphibians and reptiles, and 420 species of orchids have been recorded here. Spider monkeys, howler monkeys, agoutis, and two-toed sloths move through the forest, and the night walks reveal a world of armadillos, tarantulas, and the extraordinary Hoffman’s Two-toed Sloth rustling in the canopy above.
But there is one creature that draws travellers to Monteverde from the farthest corners of the earth: the Resplendent Quetzal.
The quetzal was sacred to the Maya and the Aztecs, who used its tail feathers, which can grow to a full metre in length on the males in the headdresses of kings and priests. Today it is considered one of the most beautiful birds on earth, its iridescent emerald body and brilliant crimson breast making it almost impossible to believe it’s real. Spotting one in the mist-draped canopy of the Monteverde cloud forest, guided by a naturalist who knows exactly where to listen for its call and which fruiting wild avocado trees it favours, is one of those wildlife moments that travellers describe in awed, quiet terms for years afterwards.
The hanging bridges of Monteverde are extraordinary in their own right, elevated walkways that take you through the forest at canopy height, offering perspectives on the ecosystem that ground-level hiking simply cannot deliver. And the zip-lines, which send you flying above the forest canopy with the cloud forest stretching in every direction below, manage to be both an adrenaline experience and one of the finest views in Costa Rica simultaneously.
Monteverde is where the trip ends. It is also, many of our guests tell us, where they decide they need to come back.
The Best Time to Visit
Costa Rica has two distinct seasons: the dry season (December to April) and the green season (May to November). Both have their charms, but for wildlife, the seasons each offer different rewards. Sea turtle nesting in Tortuguero peaks between July and October. Quetzal sightings in Monteverde are best between January and May. The dry season offers clearer skies and easier travel, while the green season brings lush landscapes, fewer crowds, and the extraordinary spectacle of the rains arriving each afternoon like clockwork.
We offer departures across the year and will always advise you on the best timing for your particular interests. Whatever time you choose, Costa Rica will not disappoint.
Ready to Step Into the Wild?
This is our first Costa Rica adventure, and we are very proud of it. Every destination, every lodge, every guide has been chosen with the same care and attention that we bring to all of our Untravelled Paths experiences.
If Costa Rica has been on your list, and it really should be, there has never been a better time to go. We’d love to tell you more about the trip, walk you through the itinerary, and help you understand whether this is the adventure for you.
Get in touch with us today to find out more or to start planning your trip. And if you’d like to have a proper conversation about the experience, we’d be delighted to schedule a Zoom call with one of our team, just let us know and we’ll find a time that works for you.
Pura vida, as the Costa Ricans say. It translates as “pure life.” Spend two weeks in this country and you’ll understand exactly what they mean.
