Vista Las Islas Eco Boutique Hotel, Paquera

Vista Las Islas is an 18-room hillside hotel above Playa Órganos, just outside Paquera on the Gulf of Nicoya, where every room looks across the water to Tortuga Island. It’s a small, relaxed place with its own fruit garden, an open-air restaurant and a pool, and it sits 15 minutes from Curú Wildlife Refuge. Book it for island views, a quiet base near the ferry and easy days on the water, rather than for a deep rainforest experience.

At a glance

Where it is

Paquera is the gateway to the southern Nicoya Peninsula for anyone crossing the gulf by car ferry from Puntarenas. The hotel’s getting here page puts it about 7 minutes’ drive from the ferry landing, with signs along the way. Drivers coming from Liberia follow the coast road south for about 3 hours, with the gulf on their left, and small planes fly into Tambor.

The setting is the main attraction. Playa Órganos and the bay below are calm, sheltered waters dotted with islands, quite unlike the surf beaches of Santa Teresa on the other side of the peninsula. The hotel sits on a hillside between dry tropical forest and the sea, and its islands and wildlife page describes nights with howler monkeys calling from the trees and mornings full of birdsong.

The rooms

The rooms page lists 18 rooms in 5 types, all with island views:

• Standard King rooms with a king bed and satellite TV.
• Standard Family rooms with 2 queen beds.
• 4 Deluxe rooms with a king and a queen bed.
• A Junior Suite with a queen bed, full kitchen, espresso machine and air conditioning.
• An Apartment with 3 separate bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and air conditioning, good for families or friends traveling together.

The tone is comfortable and casual rather than luxurious.

Food from the garden

The open-air restaurant, El Gran Mirador, looks straight out to Tortuga Island. According to the restaurant page, the hotel grows a good share of its own produce: herbs, pineapple, papaya, lime, guava, banana, plantain, cassava and soursop, and uses as much of it as possible in the kitchen. Seafood comes from local fishermen, and there are meat and plant-based dishes too. Dinner, fresh fruit juices and sunset cocktails are the highlights; ask the hotel about other meals when booking.

Things to do

The hotel runs a short list of tours, and most are about the gulf and its islands:

• Tortuga Island snorkeling: a boat trip past several islands, with a stop at Isla Nancital, known locally as Spider Monkey Island, before swimming and snorkeling at Tortuga.
• Night kayaking and bioluminescence: paddling after dark when tiny organisms make the water glow with every stroke.
• Curú Wildlife Refuge walk: a morning walk with a bilingual local guide.
• Montezuma canopy and waterfalls: zip lines above the Montezuma River and swims in waterfall pools.
• Horseback riding: through the countryside and along the palm-lined bay of Tambor.

Isla San Lucas National Park, a former prison island now protected for its history and forest, is also in the gulf and can be visited by boat.

Curú Wildlife Refuge

The best nature experience near the hotel is Curú Wildlife Refuge, about 15 minutes away. It covers 1,496 hectares of dry deciduous and semi-deciduous forest, mangroves and quiet beaches, and the refuge lists scarlet macaws among its birds, alongside the howler monkeys heard all along this coast. A morning walk there gives a real sense of the tropical dry forest that once covered this coast.

How “eco” is it?

Honestly, modestly. Vista Las Islas calls itself an eco boutique hotel, and the garden-to-kitchen produce and the use of local fishermen are real, but it publishes no other details on energy, water or conservation, and it isn’t listed in the CST sustainability directory. Think of it as a small, nature-friendly hotel in a beautiful spot rather than a conservation lodge.

Who it suits, and who might prefer somewhere else

Vista Las Islas suits couples and families who want calm water, island views, snorkeling and an easy first or last night near the Paquera ferry. The apartment works well for groups.

Travelers looking for a yoga program or beach-town energy would prefer Montezuma, further south, where Anamaya Yoga Retreat sits above the beach, while Luz en el Cielo offers a more forest-focused stay in the same area. See all the southern Nicoya eco lodges, and our guide to snorkeling and scuba diving in Costa Rica for more on the gulf.