La Fortuna Coffee Farms and Plantations
Five working farms take visitors around La Fortuna, and they are not variations on one another. One is a cacao plantation with a set timetable. One is a covered trail built for rain. One is a family smallholding worked for forty years, one an organic cacao farm with a chocolate workshop, and one pairs a wildlife trail with a tasting. Here is each of them, in turn.
North Fields, off Calle 506
The busiest farm in the district, and the only one whose fare includes hotel pickup. It collects from anywhere within about ten minutes of La Fortuna and drops you back. Coffee, cacao and sugar cane grow together here, and the tour gives two of its two and a half hours to the ground itself. Groups are capped at fifteen travellers and eight per booking, the paths are wheelchair and stroller accessible, and the fare covers local taxes, water and every tasting.
This is the fullest single answer to a La Fortuna coffee farm tours: three crops, the whole chain, and somebody collecting you from your hotel to see it.
Don Juan Arenal, north of the Banco Nacional
A family business running two halves that add up to a two-hour walk. One hour goes on coffee, seed to cup; one hour on cacao, seed to bar; and a hands-on grinding session sits between them. The two listings put the farm 1.3 and 1.5 kilometres north and north-east of the La Fortuna Banco Nacional, off Route 351.
Its distinguishing feature is structural rather than agricultural: every trail is covered and every path is cement. Wheelchairs and strollers have no trouble on it, and the tour runs through the changeable Arenal weather rather than around it. In a town whose wettest month averages 331 mm, that is the difference between a booking that survives the forecast and one that does not.
Don Olivo, off Route 142
A cacao plantation of 1,600 trees producing around 150 pounds of cacao a week. It is run by the family of the man who planted it — the guide's own grandfather. It is also the only farm here with fixed daily departures, at eight, ten, one and three, which makes it the easiest to slot around a waterfall or a volcano trail.
Two hours on the farm cover the flower, the pod, fermentation, drying and the stone grinder, and the tasting runs to chocolate, tropical fruit, spices, coffee and rum. Admission is inside the fare, the group is capped at fifteen, and it is the one farm here that offers infant seats.
Eden Chocolate, at San Jorge
Organic cacao and nothing else, for an hour and a half. The walk starts in the planting: the flower, the pods on the trunk, the trees themselves. It moves on through the fermentation boxes and the sun-drying beds. Then you roast and grind the beans yourself at the ranch and make bonbons to take away.
The grounds run down to a river with a restaurant above it, which makes this the easiest of the farms to turn into a longer afternoon. Groups are listed at up to thirty travellers, the paths take wheelchairs and strollers, and private transport is the one thing the fare does not cover.
Finca La Esperanza, up the valley
The Villegas family have lived and worked this farm for more than forty years. They raise pigs and goats and make cheese. They also run the only tour in La Fortuna that is coffee and nothing else: you pick, you roast, you grind by hand the old way, then brew and drink what you made.
It closes on a typical snack cooked over an open flame, paired with your own coffee, and a small bag of beans goes home with you. Entry, the guided walk round the property and the history of coffee in Costa Rica are all inside the fare. The trail is not suitable for wheelchairs.
The farm on the sloth trail, east of the central park
Six hundred metres east of La Fortuna's central park, a guided walk on a sloth trail runs into a small farm beside it. The farm half is deliberately undemanding: coffee and cacao alongside a good number of medicinal plants, with a beverage made from each. The wildlife half does the walking and this half does the tasting.
Three hours cover both. Guides carry spotting scopes and use them, which is the difference between knowing a sloth is somewhere overhead and actually seeing one.
The honey farm, and its bees
One organic farm here opens on something no other tour in the district offers: native stingless bees, and a tasting of the several different honeys they make. From the hives the walk goes out to the cacao, tastes the fruit around the bean before anything is roasted, and then reaches the coffee growing beside it.
The tasting station at the end pours coffee, chocolate and honey without a limit on how much you try. There is a gift shop and a restaurant on the property. A bilingual guide and access to the whole farm are inside the fare.
What these farms have in common
All of them sit at around 250 metres on the San Carlos plain, which is warm, wet, low ground. All of them grow more than one thing. All of them put admission inside the fare and cancel free up to 24 hours ahead. And not one of them includes a meal, which is the single most useful thing to know before you plan the rest of the day.
Hours and inclusions as each operator states them, captured 2026-08-29.
| Farm | What it grows | Hours on the farm | From | Transport |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Fields | Coffee, cacao, sugar cane | About 2 hours | From $46 | Hotel pickup included |
| Don Juan Arenal | Coffee and cacao | 2 hours | From $61 | Make your own way |
| Don Olivo | Cacao, fruit, spices, cane | 2 hours | From $30 | Make your own way |
| Eden Chocolate | Organic cacao | 1 hour 30 minutes | From $39 | Make your own way |
| Finca La Esperanza | Coffee only | 2 hours | From $40 | Meet at the farm |
| The honey farm | Cacao, coffee, stingless-bee honey | 2 hours | From $56 | Make your own way |
| The sloth trail farm | Coffee, cacao, cane, medicinal plants | 3 hours across both sites | From $100 | Make your own way |
Which farm suits which visitor
- No car, staying out of town: North Fields, because pickup is inside the fare.
- Rain in the forecast: Don Juan Arenal, because the trails are covered end to end.
- Tightest budget, or a spare two hours: Don Olivo, at the floor price, with four departures a day to choose from.
- Travelling with children: Eden Chocolate, where they grind the beans and mould their own bonbons.
- You actually came for coffee: Finca La Esperanza, the only tour here that leaves the cacao out.
- You want wildlife too: the sloth trail and the farm beside it, booked as one morning.
Getting there, what to wear and when to book are on the visiting page. What happens once you arrive is on what to expect. Every farm above is bookable through La Fortuna Coffee Tours.
