Cape Cod National Seashore

We spent 2 days on different points on Cape Cod National Seashore. The first day was super windy at Race Point Beach, so we didn't spend as much time there as we would have liked as the sand was just cutting. The other beach we went to was Coast Guard Beach and it was the most perfect beach day. You couldn't keep my MN kids out of the ocean. I guess we also walked down Nauset Beach too, but I didn't take any videos of that.




Cape Cod National Seashore is part of the National Parks system and you can use your national parks pass there, otherwise it is $20 parking admission for each beach. We had already had our pass from our trip in August, so we were good to go! We definitely got our money's worth out of the pass this year. It cost us $80 for the Annual Pass and it would have cost us $110 in parking admission on our summer trip, plus we got $12 off at the Arch, and now saved $40. So, it would have cost us $162 individually, but we paid just less than half for the annual pass. Next year I will have a 4th grader, so we will get our pass for free.

Punta Leona / Playa Blanca

Punta Leona is the nearest white sand beach to Jaco, Costa Rica. It was actually recommended by our airbnb host, but it was something my husband had looked up as well. We really wanted to explore all kinds of beaches so the kids could see the varieties of sand that are so different in color and texture. Later in our trip, we did go to the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park that is also a white sand beach, but you have to pay to get in the the National Park to be able to access that one. But you should totally check it out because the sand there is even whiter and the water is crystal clear.

The only thing we had to pay for here was parking and I believe we paid $5. It's technically not "pay parking" as we think of in the U.S. You are paying the guys at the parking lot to "watch" your car. It's just another way they can make money from the tourists. We saw many locals walking to go there. There is a trick to accessing this beach.....read on for more....

So, will see that you can pay at the hotel on this beach to have a day pass, but it's kind of expensive from what I have read. Well, expensive to access a beach that is technically a public beach. What I found is it is $20 a person for a day pass to the hotel. I am not sure what else that gets you besides access to the beach, but we weren't going to spend $80 for our family to spend a half day at a beach.

You can access this beach through another beach and doing a bit of walking. It's not a lot of walking, so don't let that scare you. You are technically parking at the other beach called Playa Mantas. It does look like a nice beach and they had a big inflatable obstacle course in the water you could pay to do, so you may even want to stay there. But if you want to know how to access Punta Leona at Playa Blanca, click on the link to access all the info on the website Two Weeks in Costa Rica.

And here is the post from last week of my Save Green Being Green Wordless Wednesday post regarding Punta Leona / Playa Blanca.

Playa Hermosa (Jaco, Costa Rica)

This is technically from our 2nd day in Costa Rica, although much of the time we spent the fist afternoon there was waiting in line at the airport for customs, then the shuttle to the rental car place, then to get our rental SUV (you totally need to rent an SUV when you are in CR!! We learned that on our 2nd trip there and made sure to do it on this third trip!)

This beach is just across the road from the house we rented, but the beach access road is down a little bit.

Just so you are aware, when we went to Costa Rica this time we totally thought we were booking a place in the Guanacaste Playa Hermosa. THIS IS NOT THAT! When we were mapping everything out, we found out this Playa Hermosa is by Jaco. Eeeek! So, we spent more time in the suv driving to get here than we thought we would. Our getting to the beach would not happen our first day there. We decided to go ahead with this rental because it did take us to a different part of Costa Rica we had not been to before and this would give us new things to see, but it also meant I had to re-plan what sort of sight seeing and tours we were going to do. It all worked out. Although, once we got there and I looked at another map of CR, there is a THIRD PLAYA HERMOSA that is further south than this one. Jeez, so glad that wasn't the one we booked because I would have had to eat my 50% deposit on the house rental.

So, about this beach. This beach is a black sand beach, which is not something we have seen before. The back sand is from crushed volcanic rock. The black sand gets very hot, so you need to go early in the morning or wait until the evening. It is really too hot to walk on during the peak of the day.

Seeing that we did not get to go to the ocean on the very first day we were in CR, the kids could not wait to go and were up, dressed, eaten and ready to go at 7:30am, which was a perfect time. The sand was not too hot yet, but by the time we left at 9:30 we had to run across the dry sand to get to our parked vehicle. It was crazy hot on our feet as we are not used to hot sand like that at all. So, all the daytime pictures featured here are from 7:30-9:30am, and then we came back in the afternoon from 3:30-6pm when it wasn't going to be crazy hot on the sand.

This beach is considered a surfing beach, like Jaco Beach that I told you about where they took surfing lessons on. The tide was going out when we got there in the morning, so it was a good time to get the kids used to the waves and practice "body boarding" (we just had out small boogie boards with us at the time to use to come in the waves on, but rented body boards for a couple days later in the trip.) The evening was when there was bigger waves. The REALLY like playing in the waves and body boarding; it's not something they usually get to do in Minnesota. :)

Because this beach was so close, we spent most of our time there, but I will also tell you later on about the other beaches we were at like Playa Blanca-Punta Leona, Playa Bejuco, Jaco Beach and the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park.

A sneak peak of my Wordless Wednesday post to come up on Save Green Being Green in a month.