La Fortuna is well known for great wildlife watching. One such animal that can be seen in La Fortuna is the sloth, so if seeing a sloth is on your bucket list, then you must take a sloth tour in La Fortuna.
If you’re not staying at a hotel that has rainforest around and you really want to see a sloth, you can book a sloth tour.
We did a La Fortuna sloth tour that included round trip transportation, bilingual guide, entrance fee, snacks, bottled water and fruit. This tour went to a private trail a little outside of town and ended at the tour operator’s own private farm for snacks, coffee, fruit and birding opportunities.
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La Fortuna Sloth Tour
We offer a small discount for this La Forutna sloth tour which you can click in the link to request to book if you’re ready: La Fortuna tours discount booking page.
Tour details: 3 hours total. Includes round trip transportation, bilingual English and Spanish guide, entrance fee, bottled water, fruit and local snacks.
We visited in February, in the middle of the high tourism season and didn’t walk past any other groups. Our walk started at 8 AM and when we finished around 10 AM, one other group was going in.
The tour takes place at La Fortuna Hikes and Trails, 1 km (.6 miles) outside of the Fortuna central park. This reserve used to be a cattle farm but back around 2019, the owner, Don Claudio, decided to forego cattle farming to reforest the land and begin working in eco-tourism.
As the forest grew and more animals came to make it home, he created a flat trail for visitors to enjoy a leisurely stroll under the trees. He also built an outdoor kitchen with a traditional oven, to offer short sugar cane presentations and tortilla making workshops to guests after they finish spotting sloths.
The trail is actually right in the middle of a biological corridor, even when it was a farm. A river runs along the far side of the forest with a protected rain forest laying on the other side.
Despite being right off the main road, the trail felt fairly natural. The staff maintain it extremely well every single day, so that visitors can have a safe and smooth sloth watching and birding experience.
Sloths
Right as we got to the trail head with our guide, the owner, Don Claudio, came to get us and motioned for us to follow him right away. Even though we hadn’t even started the tour with our guide yet, he saw a sloth that was climbing on the ground and wanted to show us.
We walked about a minute on the trail and saw this juvenile three toed sloth slowly climbing up a tree from the bottom. He must have just went down to defecate, as they only do that once a week in the ground.
After a few minutes of watching this sloth slowly start climbing up the tree, we headed back to the trail head to officially start the tour. We hadn’t even begun walking the actual trail yet and we already saw one sloth super close!
We saw a total of 5 sloths, including one with a baby. La Fortuna is home to both species of sloths found in Costa Rica (two toed and three toed) and we saw both!
The Trail
The trail is very well maintained and easy to walk on as they clear and clean it every morning. It’s only about 2 km or 1.2 miles long and flat with no elevation, making it suitable for visitors of all physical levels.
There are a few benches along the path, so you can take a break and sit during your walk if you wish.
The trail is partially concrete, dirt and compacted rocks with noticeable markers posted. I liked that they put informational signs at the base of notable trees and plants.
For visitors who are not familiar with tropical flora, this is very interesting as they can see what certain tropical fruit trees and other flowers and plants look like, such as noni, cacao, ginger, heliconias and achiote.
The trail goes around a small pond where we saw a boat billed heron, an agouti and turtle. There are also frogs in the pond but we unfortunately didn’t see any.
Why You Should Book a Guided Walk
Sloths only move about 40 yards a day (35 meters) which can be just one or two trees. Although you’d think it’d be easy to see them, it’s actually not as they are experts at camouflage. Sometimes they are super high up in the trees, hiding in the leaves and branches.
Furthermore, since they sleep up to 18 hours a day, there’s a good chance you may walk right under a curled ball of fur and have no idea it was a sloth.
That’s why it’s great to have a guide, as they are trained to see wildlife and they know exactly what to look for. Guides also bring telescopes and can help you take photos of the animals with your phone through the scope.
In addition, every morning when Don Claudio does his daily checks, he puts little Costa Rican flags in the ground to signify there is a sloth nearby, which helps a lot. We found two sloths high up in the trees, thanks to the flags.
Reservations
If you have your own transportation, you can make reservations on the La Fortuna Hikes and Trails website directly via Whatsapp for a day walk or a night walk.
You can also call an Uber from downtown to get there on your own.
Free parking available.
The La Fortuna Sloth Tour We Did
If you don’t have your own transportation and would like a full tour, you can book the same La Fortuna sloth tour we did. It includes round trip transportation from hotels all around downtown Fortuna, by Fortuna waterfall and up to Tabacon for free. The tour also includes a bilingual guide, entrance fee, bottled water and snacks.
After you finish walking the trail, the tour operator takes you back to their private farm for the snacks and more birding opportunities.
We loved the snacks which was locally made Costa Rican cheese, natilla (Costa Rican sour cream), a huge fruit platter and corn pancake. It also comes with fresh tropical juice and coffee.
As the tour is officially called Slothies and Birdies, you get more birding opportunities at the farm during snack time. Though you can see birds at La Fortuna Hikes and Trails, nature is unpredictable. We saw a few birds, some tanagers and a heron on the trail.
When we were having our snacks at the farm, we saw a bunch of toucans, hummingbirds, tanagers and guans so we got to see more birds there.
Want to book this La Fortuna sloth tour? We offer a small discount for this exact tour with our partners. Click the link to request to book: La Fortuna tours discount.
What to Bring
- Camera. If you want close up photos, you will need a telephoto lens of at least 400 mm. We used our Sony 200-600 mm lens on our Sony A7R3 and Sony 6500.
- Binoculars. You don’t need a super expensive or fancy one, I have this pair of Pentax binoculars which are great.
- Long pants, sunscreen, hat, comfortable closed toed walking shoes. There were a lot of mosquitoes on the trail, so if you use insect repellent, I recommend the wipes. If you only have spray, you must spray it before you enter the trail.
- Wear clothes that dry fast and wick away moisture. La Fortuna is hot and humid. You’re not walking a ton and you’re under the rainforest canopy, but it can get very hot.
- Rain gear when visiting during rainy months (May through December and even a couple dry season months such as January and February).
Sample Itineraries
I spent 4 days in La Fortuna with my parents and the La Fortuna sloth tour was one of the tours we did. Here was our itinerary for that day.
Light breakfast at 7 AM: We stayed at a vacation rental so we had a light breakfast of fruit and cereal.
Sloth walk at 8 AM – 11 AM: We finished the tour with the snacks and fruit at the farm. Afterwards, we drove into town to have a bigger lunch at Soda La Hormiga in downtown.
Then we walked around the park, did a little shopping and rested up at our rental before our second activity, a farm to table cooking class.
3 PM: Farm tour and cooking class until 630 PM.
After cooking class, we went back to the La Fortuna park to walk and get some dessert.
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