Playa Santa Teresa: five kilometres of surf at the end of the peninsula

What is Santa Teresa actually like?#

A single road running parallel to five kilometres of open beach, with everything strung along it. Twenty years ago it was a fishing settlement at the end of a bad road; it is now the busiest surf town in Costa Rica outside Tamarindo, and it has kept a dusty, unfinished quality that people either like a great deal or do not.

The wave is the reason. It is fast, hollow on the right swell, works year round and is biggest between April and October. It is not a first-lesson beach — that is Guiones or Sámara — but it is where people go once they can already surf.

Is it safe to swim?#

With care. The beach is steep, the shore break is heavy, and rips run out between the rock outcrops that break up the sand. A confident swimmer on a small day is fine; there is no lifeguard and it is not a beach to let children play in the shallows unwatched. The rock shelves and tide pools at the northern end are worth walking at low tide.

How do you get there from Sámara?#

Not easily, which is the thing worth knowing before deciding. Both places are on the Nicoya Peninsula, but the direct route between them does not exist: it is a long inland loop through Nicoya and Cóbano, roughly four and a half hours, or a drive to Puntarenas and the ferry to Paquera. Santa Teresa is a destination in its own right rather than a day trip from anywhere on this coast.