Picture a boat engine cutting to idle on glassy tropical water, and then the sharp exhale of a bottlenose dolphin surfacing a few metres away. That's an ordinary morning on Golfo Dulce — the 'Sweet Gulf' — a deep, fjord-like inlet on Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast, where forested hills plunge straight into the sea.
A recent piece from Matador Network highlights this corner of the country through two very different stays: Amaka in Golfito and El Mangroove up in Guanacaste. Together they sketch out two moods of Costa Rica's Pacific side — the wild, little-visited south and the more polished, surf-and-sunset north.
Golfito itself is a former banana port turned gateway to one of the country's quietest regions. The gulf's calm, sheltered waters are rich in marine life: dolphins are regularly spotted from boats, and the surrounding rainforest hums with cecropia trees, heliconias and birds. Because the gulf is protected and remote — you're a long drive, or a short domestic flight, from San José — it never feels crowded. This is the Costa Rica that people who've already done Manuel Antonio and Arenal come looking for.
Amaka sits into that landscape with a low-key, nature-first approach, making it a base for boat trips on the gulf, rainforest hikes and simply watching the light move across the water. El Mangroove, by contrast, is in Guanacaste province on the northern Pacific coast, near Playa Panama, where the vibe shifts to beach clubs, sailing outings and easy access to dry-tropical forest and some of the country's best-known beaches. Pairing the two — or choosing between them — is really a choice between deep jungle quiet and sociable beach time.
Why should this matter to a traveller? Because Golfo Dulce remains one of Central America's most underrated stretches of coastline. Wildlife encounters here feel earned rather than staged: you share a boat with a handful of people, not a flotilla. And with the Osa Peninsula and Corcovado National Park just across the gulf, it slots neatly into a bigger southern Costa Rica itinerary. If your ideal holiday is rainforest-to-sea without the crowds — and you're happy to travel a bit further for it — this is the region to watch.
