Would I need a car in San Jose?

[akana]

Being a life-long resident of Tokyo, I am used to getting around on foot and using public transport. Will this be possible in San Jose or will I have to get a personal car?

[Felipe_Villalobos1]

Hi Adana, if you get a car is better of course but you can go around by bus or train if you want.

[Mauricio_Delgado]

Hi Akana!

The car will be helpful, of course, but please take the following into account:

• Traffic in San José is terrible sometimes. Depending on the area of the city where you live this may be a problem.
• Costa Rica doesn't have a well developed road infrastructure, so the driving experience will not be very pleasant.
• If you make a decision to buy a car, use Waze to navigate. We Costa Ricans love that app for a very good reason: It is super effective to avoid traffic jams and to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner.
• We have Uber in Costa Rica, so that means that you don't necessarily have to rely on the buses or taxis.
• There is bus service to virtually every place in Costa Rica and the bus fares are relatively cheap.

I hope reply is useful, and like we Costa Ricans say, ¡pura vida!

Cheers!

[Ellie_Jimenez]

Hi Akana! If you're planning on staying in San José you don't really need to get a car, there's buses everywhere and most of them go to/from downtown to any other place, there's also Uber and the "red" taxis, though you gotta be careful cause some of them can take some advantage of foreigners.
If you're going to the beaches/mountains or so you can take a bus to some of them, but it's way better to have a car then since its kind of a long ride and some of them have to be bought ahead of time.

Hope you enjoy Costa Rica!