We are considering a trip to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Has anyone done this? I have an awesome house reserved on AirBNB that I can cancel, but need to figure out the rest of the trip.

We would be flying into Liberia, Costa Rica and then somehow get over the border to the house. I assume a private car service would be our best bet?

Any tips or advice? TIA.

I used to travel to Nicaragua every summer for a few weeks. I'd split my time between Granada and SJDS. I haven't been in a few years but you used to be able to rent a beautiful colonial house with a pool in central Granada for very cheap. Great times and highly recommend!

This looks like a cool trip. Would be curious to know the rules/regulations on driving a rental across international boarders. What would happen if you had an accident or mechanical issue in another country from where you rented? Looking at Google maps, it looks like it's only 30 mins shorter from Liberia than from Managua to SJDS.

I have a million points on SW, so need to fly to Liberia. I haven't researched it, but not sure how safe it is in Managua. You cannot take a rental over the border, but I've found several shuttle services that will drive you to the border crossing and help you through (one driver on each side).

We were originally looking at Costa Rica (been there before), but noticed the Airbnbs across the border. It is truly insane what is affordable to rent. It never even crossed my mind to go to Nicaragua before I looked.

Lived and worked in Nicaragua for almost 10 years. Wonderful country, wonderful people, used to be the safest country in Central American, maybe LatAm. SJDS is kinda boring to me, but nice nonetheless.

There is a travel group on the facebooks that deal with the travel to and from Nic and especially the CR/NIC border crossing.

Since the major political upheaval in 2018 and all the sour and bad political stuff, Nicaragua is a fraction of the fun it used to be. The border at Penas Blancas is going to be a PIA, it was never good before the 2018 mess and now that Ortega has pissed everyone off again it is more of a PIA. It is un-predictable in the sense that it might take you an hour to cross or it might take you 5. You could always piss a NIC immigration person off and they won't let you in. Getting to Penas Blancas from Liberia isn't to bad, but you will pay the Gringo tax in terms of cost. Whatever you do, get to the border early as possible.

SJDS can be fun, but you might want to venture out some to some of the other nearby beaches and such. I would always get bored there. If you are going in the fall it is some of the nicest weather that there is, but before about November expect some serious rain.

Nicaragua has really decayed as a tourist spot and the cops aren't cool like they used to and the crime has gone way up according to friends still living there. But overall the people are great and it is interesting to see and check out.