Poás Volcano
An active crater a kilometre and a half wide, seen from a lookout fifty minutes' drive away.
Duration
3 hrs – 5 hrs
Difficulty
●●○○○
Best time
First slot, before 9am
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
Poás is one of Costa Rica's most active volcanoes, and its main crater is about a kilometre and a half across — one of the widest in the world. An acid lake fills the floor, its colour running from turquoise to grey depending on activity.
The park has closed several times after eruptions, in 2017 and 2019, and reopened under a strict protocol: timed slot, helmet, and twenty minutes maximum at the lookout. Cloud forms almost every day in the late morning and blocks the crater completely.
Getting there
Fifty kilometres north of San José, about an hour and a half on mountain roads. No direct public transport: car or an organised shuttle.
What the price covers
national park entry on a booked slot, rate to be confirmed; helmet provided
What to bring
- Helmet
Rules on site
Entry is booked online for a named time slot, and time at the lookout is capped at twenty minutes. The crater is clouded over from ten or eleven almost every day: the first slot is the only one that counts.
Other places in San José
- National TheatreAn Italian-style opera house built with coffee money, in the middle of the capital.
- Mercado CentralCovered aisles since 1880, sodas — the local canteens — and the country's best coffee at the counter.
Pre-Columbian Gold MuseumSixteen hundred pieces of gold worked before the Spanish arrived, beneath the Plaza de la Cultura.
La Paz Waterfall GardensFive falls in succession on the volcano road, in cloud forest.