Costa Rica in mid June

if you are planning to go with just one board, for sure it is cheaper to go, buy a semi-new board there, and then re-sell it for half the price than paying the plane fees ...

June there = low season for tourism. Good season for waves. SSW swells. Yeah its good year-round. Pick up a tide chart from 360 surf shop in ST, and rent from there or Kina. 360 is a tiny shop and will have about 10 or so non-NSP rental shortboards in addition to the beginner junk. Kina has a larger selection of (not NSP) rentals, everything from chippy thrusters to fat twins to logs. If you can't find anything there a little further up the road is Denga surf which has rentals in addition to custom shapes.

June is good because there's no mix of South and North swells. Mix = closeout. Big souths will shut it down too, but there are adjacent reefs that will start working if the beachbreak is shut down. Heading 3-4km north OR south of ST when a solid swell is hitting there will also yield rewards.

If you can spare the coin/are on a short trip, taking the SANSA shuttle flight from SJO to Tambor saves a shitload of time getting in and out of Mal Pais. $85 or so each way, then a bus or taxi. Book it ahead of time, they're puddle jumpers (12 seats or so) that fill up fast. The flight is 30 mins, the taxi from Tambor to Mal Pais is 30mins. Its that, or 6-8 hours of bus/taxi/ferry/bus/taxi.

Been there about 11 times. If you want reccos for a place to stay, holla.

Stay at a slightly different place but love it.
last few times I've taken a board...
decided next time I'd rent/buy onsite rather than give the airlines my $$

me = green envy

here's what we had on tap near santa teresa last mid-June. Conditions may improve outside of my pedestrian range.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vti4NAL0t1wsufNRAfn-7w?feat=direct...

There were apparently storms for several weeks that ended as I arrived. Conditions were not what I had hoped.

I do suggest hopping on the Tambor flight. That was a great time-saver.

Also, if you're staying in San Jose for a night on either end, I highly recommend the Hotel Aranjuez. Awesome little bed and breakfast. Around $30 a night, if I recall. badass breakfast buffet. (read that again.) Super cool layout, too, as it consists of several houses that are now joined together into one, with courtyards, sitting rooms, and gardens in between. If you can pop up from my video link into the album, I have a bunch of pics near the end.

Griss is a pretty nice place. Its actually on the other side of the main "road" that runs behind the beach but that's still just 200mts or so to the water, there are lots of little paths right by that stretch. There are supermarkets 1km N and .5km S of Griss. And an excellent restaurant named Tika nearby serving generous plates of fresh fish + sides (two could do with one plate unless you're both ravenous from surfing all day), but if you go try "grandma's pork" at least once... worth the $.

Can't see that photo album. I've been skunked at ST only a couple times, which resulted in bailouts to the east, Viejo and Bocas... got totally denied in Nicaragua once, but that was b/c of a Hurricane that hit El Salvador, the backside of it fucked up everything to the south for days and days...