If the Pacific Coast is your first stop after San José, then the small coastal town of Uvita is an excellent, logical choice. The gateway to the Marino Ballena National Park, it’s got gorgeous protected beaches, fantastic whale-watching year-round, a laid-back atmosphere between the dusty roads and waves.

In this short ‘routes’ post, we've shared the key information to help you plan ahead. There’s all the essential notes on the bus we took from San José to Uvita - which remains the best option for independent travellers using public transport in Costa Rica - and we’ve also included a quick overview of two alternatives if you’d prefer to travel by car or private transfer.

Travel Better | After you’re done, keep planning with our post on the best things to do in Uvita.

San José to Uvita by car

Costa Rica is made for a road trip if you’ve got the budget, and the drive from San José downtown or straight from Juan Santamaría International Airport is very manageable.

The distance is 139 mi / 223 km, which should take you around four hours given that most of it is along the coastal highway. If your flight arrives in the early evening or later, we’d suggest staying in a hotel in the nearby Alajuela area (many offer a free shuttle service) and collecting your car the next day so you can be well rested and enjoy the scenery!

The best place to look + book a rental car for Costa Rica is via an aggregator like Rentalcars.com or AutoEurope, both of which we’ve used for lots of road trips on our travels.

We’d highly recommend reading this post before you book any car overseas though: 9 Essential Car Rental Tips for Travellers.

Alternatively, you could opt for this door-to-door private transfer from San Jose to Uvita, whilst there are also several shuttles available on Bookaway.

Realistically though, it would be better to put your money toward a rental car than the transfer, as having one will really open up options for explorations in and around Uvita, as well as the wider Pacific Coast.

San José to Uvita by Bus

Step One | Make Your Way to the Tracopa Terminal

As is common across much of Latin America, large cities have a variety of bus stations tied to specific companies or routes, rather than a single central bus terminal.

The company that travels towards and along the Pacific Coast from San José is called Tracopa, and all their buses leave from the same station: the Tracopa LTDA Bus Terminal in the south of the city.

You can find it here on Google Maps.

This is also the terminal you should head to for journeys to Jaco, Sierpe (for onward travel to Drake Bay) or Manuel Antonio National Park.

Wherever you’re staying in the capital, we’d recommend hopping in an Uber from your accommodation for a safe and easy way to travel; our 15-minute journey from the Lost In Costa Rica Hostel was less than $3 USD.

The station is quite small, has some seats, a few snacks for sale, toilets, several ticket desks, and screens detailing routes and departures.

If you’re flying into San José Airport (SJO) and want to go straight to Uvita, then simply get a taxi at the airport to take you to the Tracopa terminal. Travel time is 30-45 minutes depending on traffic, but I’m afraid we don’t know costs (please share in the comments if you do it!).

Alternatively, you could opt for this private transfer from San Jose Airport to Uvita.

Plan | The Best Things To Do in San José - The Capital of Costa Rica

Step Two | FIND THE San Jose TO to Uvita BUS

To reach Uvita, you can take any bus going along the Ruta 27 x Costanera, not just those terminating in Uvita.

Although some routes will list ‘Uvita’ as the final destination, most won’t, so it’s a good idea to just ask at the ticket desk for ‘la proxima bus por Uvita, por favor’. When we travelled, the departures board above the ticket desks listed the relevant options with an ‘X Costa’ under the ‘Ruta’ information (see our mobile picture below), whilst another handwritten sign had them down as ‘San José x Costa’.

That may all sound clear as mud, but it will make sense when you’re in the station!

There are multiple departures each day and, at time of writing, the last bus leaves San José for Uvita at 18:40.

We recommend independent travellers in Costa Rica adjust their body clock to early starts and departures, as bus schedules in Costa Rica start very early, with fewer departures at what Europeans and American may consider ‘a morning slot’ i.e. they tend to be clustered around 5-8am and much more infrequent after that.

Also, the benefits of getting a bus at 6am means you can be on the beach, rather than in the city hostel, that afternoon!

You can view full routes and timetables on Tracopacr.com, but the website can be quite tempermental and didn’t show all the departures for the day we did this trip.

As far as we’re aware, the only way to purchase a ticket is in person from the kiosks at the Tracopa bus terminal, and it’s cash only. As it’s a popular route, we recommend arriving at the station at least 30 minutes beforehand to ensure you can get a seat.

We paid 6,025 colones per person (approx. £8/$10), and your ticket includes a designated seat (we noticed that gringos tend not to pay attention to this, much to the annoyance of locals on several buses). Something of an oddity was the fact that the ticket price appears to be a fixed fee for the whole bus route, rather than according to your final destination, with everyone paying the same irrespective of destination.

It’s safe to put your large backpack in the bottom, and your driver will ask your destination before putting it in so that it’s easily accessible at the right stop.

Changes? | We did this journey in January 2022. If there’s a significant change in tickets or schedules when you travel - or you learn of a new alternative way to go from San José to Uvita - please share in the comments. This helps us keep the article as relevant and useful for other travellers like you!

Step Three | Travel To Uvita

As with most buses in Costa Rica, they’re on the larger and more comfortable side than elsewhere in Central America (i.e. no refurbed North American school buses or minivans packed to the gunnels).

Our journey from San José to Uvita took four hours in total, which included a stop for the driver to have food.

The Tracopa bus should pull in and stop at Uvita bus station, which is situated on the right hand side of the busy Costanera Sur highway. The station has waiting areas, a small restaurant and snack shop, toilets, and there’s a tourist information centre next door to it. However, if the final stop isn’t Uvita, it may simply just pull up quite abruptly alongside the station and the driver will shout for people to get off.

You can find the station here on Google Maps.

Uvita has a bit of of unique layout though and, depending on where your accommodation is situated, you’re going to have a short walk, long walk up a hill, or a quite long walk along the highway and down some dusty roads. Given the spread out layout of Uvita, and its increasing popularity, don’t arrive here without a reservation somewhere (we loved Cascada Verde Hostel).

We recommend pinning your accommodation in a Google Map before you travel, and working out whether it’s going to be best to walk or take one of several available taxis (the fare will be in the region of 1,000-3,000 colones depending where you’re staying).

You can find more information, recommendations, and inspiration for Uvita in our main guide: 13 Wonderful Things To Do in Uvita.