Manuel Antonio National Park is nearly quite literally, a little slice of paradise. Costa Rica's smallest national park, it sits like a jeweled pendant jutting out into the ocean just south of Quepos on Costa Rica's central Pacific coast.

 

Less than seven hundred hectares in size, the park boasts a startling stereotypical tropical magnificance. Punta Catedral (Cathedral Point) is aptly named, a forest-covered gem with winding trails standing high above the water, offering spectacular views with minimal effort to find them. The Catedral was once an island, but is now connected to the coast by a thin strip of land that forms a spine between two of Costa Rica's most notable beaches, Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio. This formation, one of the most often photographed locations in the nation, is what all of Costa Rica identifies as Manuel Antonio, a national icon for natural beauty and the spirit of preservation.

The town of Manuel Antonio proper is hardly separable from Quepos, and most visitors will never know that the two towns are not one and the same village. Manuel Antonio is home to more than its share of five-star luxury enclaves, hidden discretely away among the lush green hillside, with a dedicated following of celebrities who are drawn to the stunning natural beauty and guaranteed discretion and world class pampering that has become the defining feature of the accomodations of Manuel Antonio.

The park is easily accessible, and home to sloths, iguanas, a very precocious tribe of squirrel monkeys and countless crabs. Rainforest, beaches, and coral reefs combine for a most picturesque beach experience, an illusion that you are miles from nowhere. Park is open from 7am to 4pm Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Mondays.