La Fortuna Waterfall Skip-the-Line Ticket: Entry Only, 500 Steps Down

This is the admission ticket, bought ahead so you walk past the queue at the gate. No guide, no transport and no group: you arrive when you want and leave when you want. The waterfall sits inside Arenal Volcano National Park and drops 70 metres, fed by the Fortuna River and the small streams that rise in the mountains behind it. Getting to the pool at the bottom means about 500 steps down, and the same 500 back up, which is the part worth planning for. Temperatures in the park run between 18 and 35 degrees Celsius, which is why the vegetation is as dense as it is and why the range of wildlife is what it is. The hills around the falls are Cerro de los Perdidos, Placas de Mayo and Cerro Chato, all of them standing on rock formations of real geological value. More than 100,000 people come every year, which is the whole argument for holding a ticket before you get there.