Lapa Rios Lodge

Lapa Rios sits on a ridge on the Osa Peninsula, surrounded by a thousand acres of privately protected rainforest that its founders bought to stop it being logged. Sixteen thatched bungalows on stilts look down over the forest canopy to the Golfo Dulce.

The Osa is the most biodiverse corner of Costa Rica, and guiding is the point here: scarlet macaws, four monkey species, tapir tracks and, with luck, a glimpse of something larger in the neighbouring Corcovado National Park. Rooms now have air conditioning, but the lodge remains open-sided and deliberately rustic.

Getting here takes effort, usually a light aircraft to Puerto Jimenez followed by a rough drive. That remoteness is what keeps the wildlife and the silence intact.