Day 1, Arrival/San Jose

Arrival to Costa Rica. Meet our representative at the Juan Santamaría International Airport and transfer to our hotel near the capital city of San José, where Foto Verde Tours’ Greg Basco will be waiting for you. Our hotel is surrounded by a beautiful tropical garden filled with great subjects for macro photography, including orchids, bromeliads, and passionflowers. There is free wireless Internet throughout the property.

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Day 2, San Jose

After breakfast, we spend the morning in the classroom going over the techniques that we’ll be employing during our time out in the field but with a special emphasis on using flash for natural-looking images. Throughout the day we’ll be working on these techniques in the fantastic gardens right behind the hotel. The orchids, bromeliads, heliconias, and passion flowers in the gardens are simply amazing, and there are even some cool frogs and bugs.

Day 3, Arenal Volcano

After breakfast, we travel to the Arenal Volcano area. We go directly to the EcoZoo that our friend Victor and his family have run for years. They are some of the foremost experts on herpetelogical collection, education, and handling. We'll enjoy a nice lunch right on site and then take the afternoon to start photographing some of the cool animals in their collection using the techniques we practiced the previous day. We arrive to our lodge in the early evening and then enjoy a relaxing dinner. Our lodge affords some of the area’s best photographic views of the famous Arenal volcano and offers fantastic sunset views over Lake Arenal and the surrounding hills.

Day 4, Arenal Volcano

Today we will divide the group in two. Half the group will go to Victor's place to continue photographing glass frogs, tree frogs, lizards, and snakes. We will photograph all of these animals on natural stages that we will set up on site. This half of the group will enjoy a delicious home-cooked lunch as well as refreshments and coffee throughout the day.

The other half of the group will spend the morning on the lodge grounds photographing oropendolas, honeycreepers, and tanagers at the lodges fruit feeders as well as various species of hummingbirds that visit the hedges. We'll then head to town for a bite to eat before visiting a local nature refuge that offers great photo opportunities for butterflies, caterpillars, sloths, and spectacled caimans as well as some colorful birds.

We all meet back at the lodge in late afternoon to photograph the sunset and the Arenal Volcano.

Day 5, Arenal Volcano

Today we switch groups and do it all again!

Day 6, Arenal Volcano

After breakfast today, we take a different tack for our photography this day – wide angle closeups of animals in the environment! We'll head out to a few nearby sites to photograph animals from Victor's collection at photographic sites that we've previously scouted with overlooks of Lake Arenal. We return for lunch at the lodge and then head out into the forest reserve right at our lodge for more wide angle macro photography. And in the evening, we'll all work together with flashlights to produce a moonlit look for photos of boa constrictors and lizards in the forest, an incredible experience where you'll learn an innovative technique that Greg has been perfecting over the past couple of years.

Day 7, Lowland Rainforest

After breakfast today, we have some time to process images and then pack for departure to our next area, the lowland rainforests of Sarapiqui. En route we stop for a delicious homemade lunch at a local farm and a fantastic photo session with beautiful wild, free-flying Scarlet and Great Green macaws! We arrive to our lodge in late afternoon. We'll then photograph red-eyed tree frogs at a pond right outside the lodge restaurant before enjoying a nice dinner.

Day 8, Lowland Rainforest

This morning after breakfast, we have a visit to the house of one of our friends to photograph a number of different species of colorful native frogs, lizards, snakes, birds, and hummingbirds. We'll spend all day with our friend, enjoying a delicious typical lunch prepared right on site by his wife. We return to our lodge for a cold drink and a pizza dinner!

Day 9, Cloud Forest

After breakfast this morning, we travel to the higher cloud forests of the northern Central Volcanic Mountain Range, and our next lodge, which is located in one of the most biodiverse areas of the country, nestled in a picturesque valley at approximately 4,500 feet above sea level. With its rushing mountain streams, cool air, and orchid and moss-festooned trees, the area is akin to a tropical Colorado. We make a lunch stop at a beautiful waterfall for some landscape photography. We then arrive to our lodge in mid-afternoon with time to get settled in and then photograph hummingbirds on attractive perches. We'll take a night hike in the forest tonight to look for subjects for our macro photography tomorrow.

Day 10, Cloud Forest

Today we take the entire day for macro photography in our lodge's beautiful cloud forest reserve, which is filled with great orchids and mushrooms. We'll work with macro and wide angle lenses.

Day 11, Cloud Forest/San Jose

After breakfast, we pack up and head back toward San Jose. En route we have a couple of special treats. First, we'll make a stop for a coffee tour at a sustainable, organic coffee farm owned by some of Greg's friends. We then enjoy a delicious traditional-style Costa Rican lunch. We arrive to our capital city hotel in late afternoon and then we'll enjoy a farewell dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Day 12, Airport

Private transfer to the airport for your flight home.