August in Las Catalinas arrives in full color. The hills are green – and not just green but GREEN. The flowers bloom brighter. The rivers are rushing. The whole landscape seems to lean outward, inviting you in.
For couples who love the outdoors, this is one of those months when the setting itself starts to shape your trip. You don’t just observe Costa Rica in August; you experience it. You move through it. You taste it. You hear it rushing beneath a bridge or feel it pulling at the fishing line in your hands.
At Santarena Hotel, set in the beach town of Las Catalinas, this is what makes August such a compelling time to visit. Not because the season asks you to settle for anything, but because it offers a version of Costa Rica that’s especially vibrant, textured, and ready for adventure.
For couples who want more than a lounge chair and a dinner reservation, August can be exactly the right kind of invitation.
Some seasons seem made for long lunches and shade. August is not that kind of month.
This is when Costa Rica’s outdoors become impossible to ignore. The coastline is vivid, but the inland landscapes take on another level of expression entirely. The terrain is every shade of green, the water is flowing, and every trail, river, and canyon seems to carry a little more force and color than usual. If you’re the kind of traveler who wants to feel a destination rather than simply observe it, this is a beautiful time to be here.
That’s especially true here in Las Catalinas, where life is already built around movement. The beach is right there. The trailhead beckons nearby. The town itself encourages you to spend more time outside, to move between sea and hills and meals and moments without feeling cut off from any of it. In August, that lifestyle feels even more connected to the season around it.
There’s another reason August feels especially fitting for a post like this. XTERRA Costa Rica returns to Las Catalinas annually in August, bringing trail runs, triathlon events, open-water swims, and the kind of festival energy that reminds you what this destination does so well: it draws people who want to be outside, who want to test themselves, who want to experience place through motion.
Even if you’re not coming for XTERRA itself, the spirit of this international event says something real about August in Las Catalinas: This is a month that naturally belongs to people who love adventure.
Our Artisanal Fishing experience begins in Playa Flamingo, but what it really offers is a different way of understanding the coast.
You set out with fishermen who have worked the waters of Guanacaste for generations, using traditional hand-line methods that require patience, knowledge, and a very close relationship with the sea. This is not sportfishing built around brute force or numbers, but a slower, more deliberate, and far more human communion with the sea. You’re learning as much as you are catching.
That’s part of what makes the experience so memorable. You see the water differently when you’re out there with people whose livelihoods, habits, and stories have been shaped by it for years. You begin to understand how fishing, conservation, and food are connected. You hear about sustainable methods. You feel the line in your hands. You become part of something more rooted than a simple excursion.
And then there’s lunch.
If the fishing portion brings you into the rhythm of the coast, the meal gives it meaning. Your catch is taken to Estero Azul, where, alongside a chef-anthropologist, it becomes a meal inspired by pre-Hispanic culinary styles. This is where the day shifts from ocean to table, from learning to tasting, from the physical act of fishing to the pleasure of sharing what it becomes.
That combination is rare. It’s cultural without becoming staged. It’s culinary without becoming fussy. And it gives couples a day that feels immersive, local, and beautifully specific to this part of Costa Rica.
And because the species vary throughout the year, there’s always a seasonal element to the experience. In August, nearshore waters around this part of Guanacaste can bring species such as snapper, roosterfish, jack, and mackerel into the story, though of course the exact catch depends on conditions and timing. That variability is part of the point. You’re not repeating a fixed performance, but stepping into the living rhythm of the sea.
If the fishing day draws you into the human side of the coast, Río Perdido (the Lost River) gives you something entirely different.
The canyon adventure there is dramatic in any season, but in August it takes on a different visual life. The setting is vibrantly green, the water flowing, and the whole landscape more expressive. White canyon walls cut through vivid vegetation. The thermal river runs in a ribbon of impossible shades of blue and emerald. What might feel stark in a drier moment is richly alive this time of year.
And then there’s the structure of the experience itself, which is thrilling without ever losing its sense of place.
The Río Blanco canyon becomes the stage for a sequence that includes 15 platforms, a pendulum cable, a 50-foot Tarzan swing, a 90-foot challenge bridge, four via ferratas, and five zip lines ranging from 260 to over 800 feet. It’s active, yes, but it’s also intensely scenic. You’re not just moving through an adventure course, but also through a landscape that continually demands your attention. Don’t blink!
That is what makes it so effective for couples: This day trip combines adrenaline with awe. You’re not simply crossing something off a list, but reacting together, laughing together, taking in the scale of it together. The thrill comes not only from speed and height, but from the setting itself, which feels amplified by the season.
This is not about saying August is better than any other month. It is about saying that the canyon tells a particularly vivid story at this time of year, one full of motion, water, color, and natural drama.
One of the best things about this pairing is that it never feels repetitive.
The Artisanal Fishing experience gives you the coast through tradition, conversation, and food. Río Perdido gives you the inland landscape through movement, height, and force. One is intimate and human-scaled, the other is expansive and elemental. One teaches you something about the people who have lived with this region for generations, the other throws you directly into the kind of terrain that makes Costa Rica so geologically alive.
Together, they create a much fuller picture of this special place. When you’re here for a handful of days, you want to use them well. The right pairing can make a short trip feel rich, specific, and complete. This one does exactly that.
Of course, what makes all of this work so well is not only the adventures themselves, but the way they fit into the shape of your stay at Santarena.
You head out into something vivid and physical during the day, then come back to a hotel that knows how to hold the rest of the experience together. A dinner that doesn’t need to be rushed. A rooftop pause. The walkable ease of Beach Town. The sense that you are not staying somewhere generic, but somewhere that understands how active days and long evenings can belong to the same trip.
That is where Santarena comes in. Not as the loudest part of the story, but as the place that creates coherence.
If August is calling you toward something more outdoorsy, more colorful, and more connected to place, we’d love to help you shape it. Explore Santarena’s curated experiences and discover how a few well-chosen adventure days can turn into something much bigger.