Santa Teresa, Costa Rica: Every Way In, With Prices
Verified on 25 September 2026, on the route pages of Tropical Tours Shuttles, Easy Ride and Interbus, on ARESEP’s official bus-fare register, on Sansa’s own destination pages and on the Central Bank’s exchange rate for that day.
A shared shuttle to Santa Teresa costs USD 60 per person with Tropical Tours Shuttles — from San José airport (ferry fees included) or from Liberia airport — and USD 79 with Easy Ride. The regulated public bus from San José to Mal País and Montezuma is CRC 7,320 (about USD 16.12); its registered route ends at Mal País, and the local route that names Santa Teresa, Cóbano – Mal País – Santa Teresa, is CRC 380. By air, Sansa flies daily from San José to Cóbano, and Tropical Tours prices the taxi from Cóbano airport to Santa Teresa at USD 40.
The data says two things. The San José – Mal País bus fare is about 27% of Tropical Tours’ USD 60 shared seat (our arithmetic), and Tropical Tours’ own timetables run up to three hours longer than the durations it prints beside them.
Currency: USD figures converted from colones are our arithmetic, at the Banco Central de Costa Rica reference sell rate of CRC 454.15 per US dollar for 25 September 2026.
Shared shuttles into Santa Teresa, by starting point
| From | Operator | Departs | Arrives | Operator’s stated duration | Fare, one way |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San José airport (SJO) | Tropical Tours | 06:30, 15:15 | 13:30, 20:30 | 5 hours | USD 60, ferry fees included |
| San José hotels | Easy Ride | 06:30 | not given | about 6 hours | USD 79 |
| San José | Interbus | no departure listed | — | — | — |
| Liberia airport (LIR) | Tropical Tours | 09:00, 15:00 | 13:00, 20:00 | 5 hours | USD 60 |
| Liberia airport (LIR) | Easy Ride | 09:00, 12:30 | not given | about 5 hours | USD 79 |
| Tamarindo | Tropical Tours | 09:00, 15:00 | 12:30 or 13:00; 20:00 | 5 hours (5–6 hours in the page’s intro) | USD 60 |
| La Fortuna | Tropical Tours | 05:30 | 13:30 | 5 hours | USD 75, ferry fees included |
| La Fortuna | Interbus | 06:45 | not given | 6 hours | no fare on its route table |
| Monteverde | Tropical Tours | 08:00 | 13:30 | 5 hours | USD 65, ferry fees included |
| Monteverde | Interbus | 08:00 | not given | 5 h 30 | no fare on its route table |
| Nosara | Tropical Tours | 08:00, 14:15 | 12:30 or 13:00; 20:00 | 5½ hours | USD 60 |
All read on each operator’s own page on 25 September 2026, per person, one way. Tropical Tours states on its San José, La Fortuna and Monteverde pages that the service “is sometimes operated by third party companies”; its Liberia page says that run is operated by Tropical Tours itself. Its Liberia page also promises a 20-minute window for customs and flight delays.
Interbus’s route table lists no San José to Santa Teresa departure at all — the row is a dash — though it runs the reverse direction. Of the three companies we read, Easy Ride and Tropical Tours are the two that price the San José leg. If you are starting in La Fortuna or Monteverde, Tropical Tours is the one operator on this table that prints a fare for those legs.
Tropical Tours carries a banner on every route page we read: “10$ Low Season Discount Only between Santa Teresa and Samara, Tamarindo and Liberia Airport”. It gives no dates for its low season.
The timetables are longer than the stated durations
Tropical Tours prints “5 hours” on most of these pages. Its own departure and arrival times say otherwise:
| Route (Tropical Tours) | Departs → arrives | Elapsed | Stated |
|---|---|---|---|
| San José airport → Santa Teresa | 06:30 → 13:30 | 7 h 00 | 5 hours |
| San José airport → Santa Teresa | 15:15 → 20:30 | 5 h 15 | 5 hours |
| La Fortuna → Santa Teresa | 05:30 → 13:30 | 8 h 00 | 5 hours |
| Monteverde → Santa Teresa | 08:00 → 13:30 | 5 h 30 | 5 hours |
| Liberia airport → Santa Teresa | 09:00 → 13:00 | 4 h 00 | 5 hours |
| Liberia airport → Santa Teresa | 15:00 → 20:00 | 5 h 00 | 5 hours |
| Tamarindo → Santa Teresa | 09:00 → 12:30 or 13:00 | 3 h 30 – 4 h 00 | 5 hours |
The elapsed column is our arithmetic on the operator’s own clock times; the operator publishes no such column. On the morning runs from San José and La Fortuna the printed timetable is two to three hours longer than the headline duration; on the morning runs from Liberia and Tamarindo it is shorter. Plan against the clock times for the run you book.
Easy Ride’s own estimates are “about 6 hours” from San José and “about 5 hours” from Liberia; Interbus puts its La Fortuna run at 6 hours and its Monteverde run at 5 h 30. None of the three companies publishes a kilometre distance for any of these legs.
Flying in: Cóbano or Tambor
| Airstrip | Scheduled flights we found | Transfer to Santa Teresa | Transfer time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cóbano (ACO) | Sansa, daily from San José; “up to 6 daily flights” depending on season | USD 40 one way, Tropical Tours taxi | 30 minutes (Tropical Tours); Sansa says Cóbano is “just 15 minutes from Santa Teresa” |
| Tambor (TMU) | none on Sansa’s destination menu | USD 55 one way, Tropical Tours private taxi or minibus | 1 hour |
Sansa’s destination menu lists this area as “Santa Teresa- Malpais (Cobano- ACO)” and has no Tambor entry. Tropical Tours still sells a Tambor airport transfer; which airline flies into Tambor, we could not establish from the two Sansa pages we read on 25 September 2026. Neither Sansa destination page prints a flight time. Sansa’s live San José–Cóbano fares, quoted on its booking engine, are on our Costa Rica trip cost page rather than repeated here.
The two sources disagree on the Cóbano-to-Santa Teresa time — 15 minutes by Sansa’s account, 30 by the transfer company’s. We print both.
The public bus, at the regulated fare
ARESEP, the fare regulator, publishes the national bus tariff register as open data. We pulled it on 25 September 2026.
| Fare (ARESEP register) | Regular | Senior | In force |
|---|---|---|---|
| San José – Paquera – Cóbano – Tambor – Mal País – Montezuma (route 631 A) | CRC 7,320 (about USD 16.12) | CRC 5,490 (about USD 12.09) | 1 July 2026 |
| Cóbano – Paquera (route 631) | CRC 1,300 (about USD 2.86) | CRC 650 | 1 July 2026 |
| Cóbano – Mal País – Santa Teresa (route 633) | CRC 380 (about USD 0.84) | CRC 0 in the register | 4 September 2026 |
Route 631 A is registered to Transportes Cobano S.A. under resolution RE067IT26/RE013IT25, with an average trip length of 168.75 km; route 633 is registered to Transportes Malpais S.A. under RE-0115-IT-2026. The through route’s registered name ends at Mal País and Montezuma, not Santa Teresa; the local route 633 is the one whose registered name includes Santa Teresa.
Two things the register does not tell you: whether the CRC 7,320 includes the ferry crossing, and any departure time — ARESEP records fares, not timetables, and we found no Transportes Cobano timetable online.
Against Tropical Tours’ USD 60 shared seat, the bus at about USD 16.12 is roughly 27% of the price (our arithmetic), before whatever the ferry adds if it is not included.
The ferry leg
Tropical Tours’ shared fares from San José, La Fortuna and Monteverde all carry the note “Includes ferry fees”, without naming the ferry. The regulated bus from San José is registered through Paquera, where the Puntarenas–Paquera ferry lands; that ferry’s timetable, passenger fares and car fares are on our Puntarenas–Paquera ferry page rather than repeated here.
The crossing shows up in Tropical Tours’ private prices. From San José airport, a private minibus is USD 240 “without ferry transhipment (another bus wait for you)” — passengers change vehicles at the ferry — or USD 300 “with ferry transhipment (bus inside de ferry)”. In the other direction, Santa Teresa to San José airport, the same two options are USD 240 and USD 340. From La Fortuna the pair is USD 280 and USD 350; from Monteverde, USD 240 and USD 350.
Private transfer or shared seat, from San José airport
Tropical Tours publishes three numbers for this leg: USD 60 per shared seat, USD 240 private (or USD 300 with the vehicle on the ferry), and an extra USD 20 per person above four passengers. It also charges USD 20 more for pickups between 9:00 pm and 6:00 am and asks for 24 hours’ notice.
| Passengers | Shared at USD 60 each | Private, USD 240 | Private with ferry transhipment, USD 300 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USD 60 | USD 240 | USD 300 |
| 2 | USD 120 | USD 240 | USD 300 |
| 3 | USD 180 | USD 240 | USD 300 |
| 4 | USD 240 | USD 240 | USD 300 |
| 5 | USD 300 | USD 260 | USD 320 |
| 6 | USD 360 | USD 280 | USD 340 |
| 7 | USD 420 | USD 300 | USD 360 |
Every cell beyond the three published figures is our arithmetic, and it assumes the USD 20 surcharge applies to both private options — the page states it once for the private service without separating them. On those terms the USD 240 private ties the shared fare at four passengers and is cheaper from five; the USD 300 option is cheaper than shared seats only from six.
Leaving Santa Teresa
Tropical Tours runs Santa Teresa to San José airport at 06:45 and 14:45, arriving 14:00 and 21:30 — 7 h 15 and 6 h 45 on its own clock, against a stated 5 hours — at USD 60 with ferry fees included. Easy Ride’s Santa Teresa to San José shuttle leaves at 6:30 am, USD 79, about 5 hours. Interbus lists a 06:45 Santa Teresa to San José departure at 6 hours, with no fare on its table.
Easy Ride’s same page prices Santa Teresa onward to Tamarindo at USD 69 and to Nosara at USD 79. A fourth company’s private Liberia-airport rates, Santa Teresa among them, are listed on our Tamarindo page.
What the operators don’t publish
- Whether ARESEP’s CRC 7,320 bus fare covers the ferry. The register gives the fare and the route name, which runs through Paquera, and nothing about the crossing.
- A timetable for the San José–Montezuma bus. ARESEP’s register carries none, and we found no operator page for Transportes Cobano.
- Arrival times from Easy Ride or Interbus. Both give departures and an approximate duration only.
- Fares on Interbus’s route table. It states only that “All rates are per person / per way.”
- A flight time to Cóbano, on either Sansa destination page we read.
- Which airline, if any, schedules Tambor (TMU). Sansa’s menu lists Cóbano only.
- The dates of Tropical Tours’ “low season” for its USD 10 discount.
- A kilometre distance for any shuttle leg, from any of the three shuttle companies.
How we researched this
Scope: this page reports source research, not an on-site test. Nobody from this site made these journeys.
On 25 September 2026 we read, and saved the text of, Tropical Tours Shuttles’ route pages from San José airport, Liberia airport, Tamarindo, La Fortuna, Monteverde, Nosara, Tambor airport and Cóbano airport into Santa Teresa, plus its Santa Teresa to San José page; Easy Ride’s shared-shuttle pages from San José, from Liberia airport and from Santa Teresa; and Interbus’s route table. Every fare, departure, arrival and stated duration above is the operator’s own figure. The elapsed times, the party-size table and the bus-versus-shuttle ratio are our arithmetic on those figures.
Bus fares come from a direct pull of ARESEP’s open-data fare register (4,770 rows on 25 September 2026). Flight information comes from Sansa’s own Santa Teresa and Cóbano destination pages; their fare-calendar widgets display 2018 dates and are not used. Colón-to-dollar conversions use the Banco Central de Costa Rica reference sell rate published for 25 September 2026, CRC 454.15, rather than the older rate used elsewhere on this site.
Where two sources disagree — the Cóbano transfer time, or a stated duration against a printed timetable — we print both figures.
Figures on this page labelled our arithmetic are calculated by us from the sourced inputs cited below — comparisons, percentages, differences, per-person multiples and currency conversions. Every other figure is reproduced as its named source published it.
Sources
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — San José airport to Santa Teresa — USD 60 shared, 06:30 and 15:15 departures with 13:30 and 20:30 arrivals, “5 hours”, “Includes ferry fees”, USD 240 / USD 300 private and the surcharges.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Santa Teresa to San José airport — the 06:45 and 14:45 departures, 14:00 and 21:30 arrivals, USD 240 / USD 340 private.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Liberia airport to Santa Teresa — USD 60, 09:00 and 15:00 departures, 13:00 and 20:00 arrivals, the 20-minute window.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Tamarindo to Santa Teresa — USD 60, times, and the 5-hour and 5–6-hour statements.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — La Fortuna to Santa Teresa — USD 75, 05:30 to 13:30, USD 280 / USD 350 private.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Monteverde to Santa Teresa — USD 65, 08:00 to 13:30, USD 240 / USD 350 private.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Nosara to Santa Teresa — USD 60, 08:00 and 14:15 departures, 5½ hours.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Tambor airport to Santa Teresa — USD 55, 1 hour.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Cóbano airport to Santa Teresa — USD 40, 30 minutes.
- Tropical Tours Shuttles — Santa Teresa routes — the low-season discount banner.
- Easy Ride — shared shuttles from San José — USD 79 to Santa Teresa and Mal País, 06:30, about 6 hours.
- Easy Ride — Liberia airport shared shuttle — USD 79 to Santa Teresa, 09:00 and 12:30, about 5 hours.
- Easy Ride — Santa Teresa shuttle — Santa Teresa to San José USD 79 at 6:30 am, about 5 hours; onward fares to Tamarindo and Nosara.
- Interbus — Our Routes — the Santa Teresa rows (no San José departure; 06:45 Santa Teresa to San José and La Fortuna to Santa Teresa at 6 hours; 08:00 from Monteverde at 5 h 30) and the rates note.
- ARESEP — Pliego tarifario de autobús, open-data register — CRC 7,320 / 5,490 (route 631 A), CRC 1,300 / 650 (route 631), CRC 380 (route 633), operators, resolutions, dates and trip length.
- Sansa — Santa Teresa — daily San José–Cóbano flights, “just 15 minutes from Santa Teresa”, up to 6 daily flights by season.
- Sansa — Cóbano — the destination menu entry “Santa Teresa- Malpais (Cobano- ACO)”.
- Banco Central de Costa Rica — reference sell rate — CRC 454.15 per USD for 25 September 2026, used for every conversion.
Last verified: 2026-09-25. Shuttle fares and timetables change without notice; the bus fares stand until ARESEP’s next resolution for each route.
Written by Estuardo Enriquez. This site is independent, carries no affiliate relationship with any operator named here, and is not connected to any previous owner of this domain.