If you’ve got some time on your hands over the holidays but are looking to stay a little closer to the Central Valley, here are five great one-day getaways from San José.

Visiting the San José Cabecar indigenous community, located in the mountains of Talamanca, Limón, is not something many people have the chance to do. This community is one of the few in Costa Rica that has maintained a significant part of its identity; they still use natural medicine, hunting and fishing techniques, traditional cultural activities and language.

Albino animals are not all that rare, says Rodolfo Vargas, founder and director of the Herpetology Refuge in Santa Ana. But in the wild they rarely grow to size. Without camouflage, they are easily seen by predators. A fully grown, 3-meter long, white boa constrictor is therefore extremely rare.

There are many ways to get to Brazil for the World Cup in June. One trio of Costa Ricans will drive there in what they call “El Chunche.”

The Baile de la Panadera, or the Baker's Dance, is so obscure that many people who make a point of knowing every cultural event in Costa Rica haven't heard about it.

Some 940,000 students from Costa Rica's public schools started classes Monday. Hailyn Guido, 9, and her mother, Patricia Loza, arrived to the Buenaventura Corrales...

On a recent trip I took to the port city of Puntarenas, I noticed a bunch of signs advertising “Churchills.” All along the Paseo de Turistas, restaurants and stands announced that their Churchills were the best in town. Good for them, I thought. But what in Costa Rica was a Churchill?