Green travel guide

Costa Rica Biological Research Stations: Rainforest Science to Visit

Costa Rica's biological research stations, including La Selva, Las Cruces, Caño Palma and the Monteverde Conservation League's field stations, are where scientists track forests, wildlife and water over decades. Some welcome booked visitors for guided walks or overnight stays, while others host only researchers and student groups. Always book ahead and expect to stay on public trails, away from active study plots.

By Pura-Verde.com Editors · Published October 30, 2026 · Last checked October 30, 2026

Best for

Birders, nature lovers, students and travelers curious about how tropical science works.

Visitor-friendly

Monteverde Conservation League's San Gerardo and Pocosol stations offer lodging, meals and guided walks; Las Cruces offers booked guided tours of the Wilson Botanical Garden.

Research-first

Most stations in the Área de Conservación Guanacaste host researchers and student groups, and many can't receive tourists.

Oldest

La Selva in Sarapiquí was set up in 1953 and bought by the Organization for Tropical Studies in 1968.

Good to know

Reservations are needed almost everywhere; active plots, labs and camera sites are off-limits.

Ask before you go

Is there a public trail or guided tour, can I stay overnight, and who do I contact?

In 1953 a botanist named Leslie Holdridge set aside a patch of Caribbean lowland forest in Sarapiquí. Fifteen years later a university consortium bought it, and La Selva became one of the best-known tropical research sites in the world. That's the quiet power of a research station: people coming back to the same trees, streams and animals for decades, and noticing what changes.

Costa Rica's biological stations cover rainforest, cloud forest, dry forest, wetlands and coast. Scientists use them to study wildlife, plants, water, disease, climate and how forests recover. Many also train Costa Rican biologists and teach visiting students.

A station isn't always an attraction, though. Some offer guided walks, overnight stays or courses. Others exist only for permitted research. This guide sorts out which is which, introduces some of the people who keep them running, and explains how to visit or help without getting in the way.

How research stations differ from parks and reserves

A national park is managed for protection and public use. A private reserve may run tours. A research station is built around long-term study: labs, dorms, data and trails that double as study plots. Some sit inside parks or reserves, and our guide to nature reserves and wildlife corridors covers the protected land around them.

Access usually falls into one of four types:

• Open trails and guided tours for booked visitors.
• Overnight lodging with meals, often shared with students and scientists.
• Courses and internships for students, usually weeks or months long.
• Research only, where you need a project, permits and approval.

La Selva: the lowland rainforest lab in Sarapiquí

La Selva protects about 1,500 to 1,600 hectares of wet lowland forest near Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí, bordered to the south by Braulio Carrillo National Park. Holdridge established it in 1953, and the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), a nonprofit consortium founded in 1963 that now includes more than 50 universities and research institutions, bought it in 1968. OTS also runs stations at Palo Verde in Guanacaste's dry forest and wetlands, and at Las Cruces in the south.

The Organization of Biological Field Stations directory lists La Selva as open to the public, with overnight housing, food service, trails and a library. It names Sofía Rodríguez as station and education director and Charles Acuña Salazar as field station manager. Birders know La Selva well, and guided walks are the usual way in. Book ahead: travel guides report daily visitor limits, and research plots stay off-limits. The OTS website was under maintenance in late October 2026, so contact the organization directly for current visit options.

Palo Verde's station sits beside a park that's had a hard year; our story on the Palo Verde wildfire shows why long-term data on wetlands and dry forest matters.

Las Cruces and the Wilson Botanical Garden near San Vito

In the southern hills, about 5 kilometers south of San Vito in Coto Brus, Las Cruces combines a research station with one of Costa Rica's best-known gardens. Robert and Catherine Wilson moved from Miami in 1962 and started the botanical garden. They sold the property to OTS in 1973. Today the station protects a forest fragment of about 270 hectares, between 900 and 1,300 meters, surrounded mostly by pasture and coffee.

That setting is the science. Researchers here ask what happens to species when forest becomes an island in farmland, and which pollinators and seed dispersers still cross between fragments. The OBFS directory lists Emilce Ramírez as station director, and the station offers school programs, lodging and public programs. A 2025 visitor guide says guided tours need advance reservations.

Plant lovers should pair it with our guide to botanical gardens in Costa Rica.

Caño Palma: long-term monitoring near Tortuguero

On the northern Caribbean coast, the Caño Palma Biological Station is run by COTERC, a Canadian nonprofit that's supported young conservation scientists here since 1991. Its team page shows the people behind decades of data. Station manager Charlotte Foale joined in 2007 and oversees day-to-day logistics. Field coordinator Manuel Arias, with the station since 2012, keeps most long-term monitoring projects running with interns and volunteers. Research supervisor fellow Ariek Barakat Norford has guided projects and interns since November 2024, research coordinator Georgie Clarke first came on a university placement focused on turtle monitoring, and turtle research fellow Shannon Doner leads the turtle project.

The station's 2026 blog gives an honest view of field life: interns paddling canals to count caimans and take water measurements, months of rain, tent-making bats and turtle season. Science here involves data sheets, repairs and cold showers more than dramatic sightings.

COTERC offers long-term internships and invites independent researchers to propose projects, which must follow Costa Rican permit rules. It's not a drop-in stop for tourists. If you're in Tortuguero, our sea turtle conservation guide covers how to see nesting responsibly.

Monteverde's field stations: where you can actually stay

If you want to sleep at a station, the Monteverde Conservation League's two field stations in the Children's Eternal Rainforest are among the easiest options.

• San Gerardo is a rustic lodge on the Caribbean slope at about 1,200 meters, a moderately hard 3.5-kilometer walk from the Santa Elena Reserve. It has about 9 kilometers of trails, guided day and night walks, three meals a day and views toward Arenal. All services need a reservation.
• Pocosol sits at about 720 meters and is reached by 4x4, roughly an hour from La Fortuna. It has about 10 kilometers of trails to a lagoon, waterfall and fumaroles. Lodging, meals and guided walks need a reservation.

Both stations say they're open year-round to tourists, student groups and researchers. Staying overnight means you'll share meals with people who study the forest, which is half the point.

Guanacaste's research stations: mostly for scientists

The Área de Conservación Guanacaste, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the northwest, runs five main stations for researchers and student groups: the Tropical Dry Forest Research Center in Santa Rosa, Maritza, Cacao, the Horizontes forestry station and Nancite. The area says many of them sit in zones set aside for conservation, research and education and can't currently receive tourists. Teachers and researchers coordinate visits through its research center. Tourists should use the public sectors instead.

Marine science on the Gulf of Nicoya

Not every station is in a forest. In Puntarenas, the Universidad Nacional's marine biology station has labs for plankton, marine microbiology, mollusk, crustacean and fish culture, fisheries and water quality, and sits next to the Parque Marino del Pacífico aquarium. It's named for Juan Bertoglia Richards, a Chilean-born biologist who helped build UNA's biology department and died in 2011. A university tribute credits him with saving fishing-law revenue in a special fund that later paid for the station's construction.

Farther up the gulf, UNA's national marine sciences station, ECMAR, sits at Punta Morales, about 50 kilometers north of Puntarenas by road, and offers training for nearby communities. Working labs and docks aren't visitor stops, so contact the university about outreach first.

Osa Conservation's field science and new technology

On the Osa Peninsula, Osa Conservation's team includes lead field biologist Paulina Rodríguez, quantitative ecologist Enzo Basso Quinche and citizen science coordinator Socorro Ávila. Its science publications include a study led by Rodríguez testing whether thermal drones can spot campfires linked to poaching and gold mining in protected forest.

Tools like that help, but a camera or drone only detects something. Understanding whether a population is growing takes careful sampling over years, which is why stories like Encanto the jaguar reappearing on a camera trap and camera traps catching birds far outside their ranges matter to researchers. Our species conservation guide covers Osa's rewilding work.

What visitors and volunteers can realistically do

• Book a guided walk or night tour where one is offered. Station guides often know the forest better than anyone.
• Stay overnight at stations with lodging, like San Gerardo, Pocosol or Las Cruces.
• Take a field course if you're a student. OTS and many universities run them.
• Apply for an internship if you can commit months. Caño Palma's are long-term.
• Join citizen science like bird counts or wildlife apps. University research reaches the public too, as our story on UCR's snake identification app shows.

What you shouldn't do: wander off trails into marked plots, touch flagging tape or equipment, collect plants or animals, or share the locations of cameras or study sites. Volunteering with no training rarely helps; our ethical volunteering guide explains what useful help looks like.

Look for stations on our map under reserves. We pin public receptions and visitor centers only, never plots, cameras or labs.

Why long-term monitoring is conservation

A forest plot or water sample becomes far more valuable when it's repeated the same way for years. Long records reveal changes nobody would notice in a week: shifts in rainfall, species moving uphill, slow forest recovery. That takes steady funding, trained local staff and careful records. The cost isn't the equipment. It's the people who keep the work going.

Costa Rica's stations deserve attention not because famous universities send students here, but because they create Costa Rican scientists and the evidence that conservation decisions rest on. If you visit one, leave knowing the name of someone who does that work.

Frequently asked questions

Can tourists visit La Selva Biological Station?

Yes, with a reservation. La Selva offers guided walks and lodging, but research plots are off-limits. Contact the Organization for Tropical Studies for current options.

Which research stations in Costa Rica offer overnight stays?

San Gerardo and Pocosol in the Children's Eternal Rainforest, Las Cruces near San Vito and La Selva in Sarapiquí all list lodging. Book ahead; meals are usually included.

Can I volunteer at a biological station in Costa Rica?

Some stations, like Caño Palma near Tortuguero, offer long-term internships. Most research roles need training, a time commitment of weeks or months and a formal application.

What is the Organization for Tropical Studies?

OTS is a nonprofit consortium founded in 1963 with more than 50 member universities and institutions. It runs the La Selva, Palo Verde and Las Cruces stations in Costa Rica.

Where is the Wilson Botanical Garden?

It's at Las Cruces Biological Station, about 5 kilometers south of San Vito in Coto Brus, southern Costa Rica. Guided tours need advance reservations.

Are all research stations open to the public?

No. Many, including most in the Área de Conservación Guanacaste, host only researchers and student groups. Always check before you go.

Sources

1. Wikipedia: La Selva Biological Station
2. Wikipedia: Organization for Tropical Studies
3. Organization of Biological Field Stations: La Selva Research Station (OTS)
4. Organization of Biological Field Stations: Las Cruces Research Station (OTS)
5. Wikipedia: Wilson Botanical Garden
6. Two Weeks in Costa Rica: Wilson Botanical Garden at Las Cruces (updated August 2025)
7. COTERC: Our Team
8. COTERC: Blog
9. COTERC: Independent Research
10. Monteverde Conservation League: San Gerardo Field Station
11. Monteverde Conservation League: Pocosol Field Station
12. Área de Conservación Guanacaste: Centro de investigación y estaciones biológicas
13. UNA: Estación de Biología Marina Juan Bertoglia Richards
14. UNA: Conózcanos, ECMAR
15. UNA Comunica: El legado de un maestro (September 2012)
16. Osa Conservation: Meet the Team
17. Osa Conservation: Science publications

We checked these pages when we last updated this guide. We didn't interview the people named; their roles and words come from the sources above.