Reserva Bosque Nuboso Santa Elena, Monteverde

We saw monkeys! Four hours and 15 minutes, we completed every single trail in the cloud forest. Luckily the day is bright and we got to see clear sky and lots of unique plants. It is not crowded and there is a shuttle bus that you can reserve to get here. We were walking around the downtown Santa Elena and luckily the tourist shuttle guide caught us and introduce us this shuttle. I have included their phone and schedule here as well. It is a beautiful forest with all easy hikes. Love it.

We went for a medium hike on one of the routes with our own guide. The cloud forest is amazing and has a wide variety of plants and some very impressive trees. The cloud was down so it was very wet and we didn't get great views. However rambling through all the corridors of foliage and viewing the various plants living off each other is good.

We bought our tickets on the spot. $32 for 2 adults. The drive here was insane. Crazy potholes! Hopefully you have a 4X4. There is about 4 trails ranging from 45 minutes to 3 hours and 30 minutes according to the staff however it’s just a guide. Obviously it will take longer if you stop and take photos or if you just want to hike you can complete the trails faster. There is a cafe near the entrance. They had some sweets and empanadas. Can’t bring food in though. The trails were easy to do, not that steep. It’s beautiful and peaceful. It wasn’t crowded at all when we went.

This one was recommended to us because less tourists come to this park and so you are more likely to see wildlife. It was very rainy and misty the day we went but the forest is beautiful no matter what. This is definitely less touristy and we didn’t often run into other people. The hike isn’t difficult and makes for a nice day exploring.

Absolutely beautiful, kind of feels like a fairy tale walking through the misty trails spotting trogons and trying to understand how it's possible for so many different plants to live on just one tree. I went from about 8-1 on a Saturday and it was not crowded, we barely ran into any other tourists on the trails. We did one longer trail that was beautiful, the path is narrow enough that you really feel like you're walking in the cloud forest rather than down a road. After the long trail, we recouped a little at the lodge - there are tables on a porch overlooking the forest - and then headed back out on a shorter trail with a lookout tower. The view from the lookout tower is ridiculous, definitely check it out! You can see multiple volcanoes. There was an adorable coati hanging out by the ranger station, too.