Costa Rica’s smallest national park certainly packs in a big punch, throwing up a selection of paradisiacal beaches, walls of rugged coastal cliffs, scintillating stretches of Pacific Ocean shoreline, and dense primeval rainforest that echo with the chirps and calls of exotic birds and mammals alike.

Be sure to ask your Manuel Antonio National Park tour guide about the popular white-sanded Playa Manuel Antonio, which can be found arching its way along the edge of the picture-perfect Punta Cathedral headland. Here, the rolling Pacific swells attract body boarders and surfers, while others come to kick back on the glistening stretches of sun-kissed sand in the shadow of the region’s trademark rock monoliths. Nearby, snorkelers bob in the waters off the Playa Espadilla Sur and sunbathers cluster on Playita Beach, while hikers walk trails in the shadow of mangroves and cecropia trees. Wildlife abounds here too, with three-toed sloths and colourful iguanas moving incessantly between the boughs of the rainforests, parakeets sounding their calls and Central American squirrel monkeys scurrying to and fro behind the beaches.