SIM Cards and Internet in Costa Rica: Staying Connected on a Road Trip

A Costa Rica road trip mixes well-signed highway stretches with long sections of dirt or gravel road, especially on the way to Monteverde, Santa Elena or the lodges of the Osa Peninsula. On these secondary roads, often without continuous signage, an offline navigation app (Maps.me, Google Maps with downloaded maps) remains the simplest safety net for not getting lost approaching a river crossing or an unmarked fork.

The network also covers more urgent needs: reporting a flat tyre to the rental company, checking a river's level before crossing it in the green season, or reconfirming a last-minute booking at a remote ecotourism lodge. On this point, Costa Rica stands out among comparable self-drive destinations: its rural mobile coverage runs well beyond the Central American average, carried by decades of public investment in fixed and mobile infrastructure.

France's four carriers now treat Costa Rica more generously than a few years ago. Free includes the country in the roaming zone of its 350 Go 5G plan: 35 Go usable at no extra cost across more than 110 destinations, Costa Rica included, from €19.99/month (€9.99 for Freebox subscribers). Since 31 March 2026, the carrier has also offered Free Max, the first French plan to include unlimited data abroad across 118 destinations including Costa Rica, at €29.99/month (€19.99 for Freebox subscribers).

Orange covers the country through its Pass Évasion 2 (up to 5 Go of data, around €29) and its new Voyage plan, which adds 40 Go a month usable across 78 destinations outside Europe, Costa Rica included. RED by SFR includes 35 Go of roaming in its 350 Go 5G plan, usable across 124 destinations including Costa Rica. Bouygues Telecom offers an Internet Travel Pass of 5 Go, active in around a hundred countries including Costa Rica.

As usual with roaming, it's worth checking the exact terms on your carrier's account page just before departure: allowances and covered destinations shift from one year to the next.

At Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO), near San José, Kolbi, Claro and Liberty (formerly Movistar) counters sit in the arrivals area and get you connected within fifteen to thirty minutes, passport in hand for the mandatory line registration. A bare SIM card costs around CRC 1,500 (about $3), plus a tourist data bundle, generally $5 to $15 depending on volume and duration.

Kolbi, the mobile arm of the public, long-standing operator ICE, remains the reference for anyone planning to drive off the main roads: it reaches furthest into rural areas and national parks, even if its rates rank among the highest in the region. Claro and Liberty cover the busiest urban and tourist areas well, often with more aggressive pricing, but coverage that thins out noticeably away from main routes.

To skip the counter queue on arrival, a tourist eSIM activates from an app before you even board. Airalo offers Costa Rica plans from around $14 for 5 Go over 15 days, up to $45 for 20 Go, or $32 for 10 Go over a month. Holafly focuses on unlimited data, with plans around $35 to $37 for seven to ten days, a comfortable option for anyone planning to run GPS continuously without watching their data usage.

This kind of eSIM mainly covers the airport-to-rental-counter leg and the first few days around San José; nothing stops you switching to a local Kolbi SIM afterwards if the trip runs longer or the route heads into less-covered areas.

Kolbi's network covers more than 90% of Costa Rica's territory, a rare figure in Central America, which makes it the logical choice for a road trip that strays off the beaten path. The Osa Peninsula and Corcovado National Park remain among the most disconnected areas in the country: Kolbi still picks up a signal in places, but it generally disappears once you head into the park itself, where driving without a certified guide is prohibited anyway.

In Monteverde and Santa Elena, coverage stays decent in the villages and main points of interest (the biological reserve, the hanging bridges), but weakens noticeably on the dirt road climbing from the valley, long left deliberately unpaved to limit tourist traffic. On this stretch, especially after dark, it's worth having downloaded your maps in advance rather than relying on an uncertain signal bar.

Costa Rica bans holding a phone while driving, whether to call, read a message or check the GPS; only a hands-free kit or a fixed mount is allowed. Article 145 of the Ley de Tránsito classifies this as a serious offence, carrying a CRC 123,000 fine in 2026 (around $270, close to €250), a figure the judiciary revises each year. A notable point covered by the local press in 2026: the offence is now recorded even while stopped at a red light, as long as the vehicle is in a traffic lane.

The fine isn't the only argument. A study by Donald Redelmeier and Robert Tibshirani, published in 1997 in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared the phone records of 699 drivers involved in a crash causing substantial property damage against their call habits the week before: using a phone while driving, hands-free kit included, quadrupled the risk of a collision in the minutes following the call (study available on Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Redelmeier+Tibshirani+1997+cellular+telephones+motor+vehicle+collisions). On Costa Rica's narrow, winding roads, where a sloth or a coati can cross without warning, a dashboard mount and voice guidance remain the only sensible option.

A few things worth checking before hitting the road:

Staying connected is only one piece of preparing a Costa Rica road trip: choosing between a 4x4 and a regular car depending on the river crossings ahead, timing the itinerary between the dry and green seasons, and budgeting for national parks and private reserves all deserve just as much thought before you set off.