This post will share everything you need to know for your visit to Playa Punta Uva Arrecife, Costa Rica's most beautiful beach!
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About Playa Punta Uva Arrecife
We visited a lot of beaches during our road trip around Costa Rica, but Playa Punta Uva Arrecife was easily our favourite.
This beach is literally a postcard, with calm, crystal-clear blue waters and a coral reef just offshore. The sand is white and powdery, and there are hundreds of palm trees lined along the sand.
It ticked all my boxes for a perfect beach!
Playa Punta Uva Arrecife is located in the tiny town of Punta Uva, just a stone's throw from Puerto Viejo on Costa Rica's South Caribbean Coast.
The Pacific Coast often gets all the credit for its beaches, but we disagree. If you like calm, swimmable waters, the Caribbean beaches are where it's at. And it doesn't get any better than Playa Punta Uva Arrecife!
The name Playa Punta Uva Arrecife translates to Punta Uva Reef Beach. The coral reef lies very close to the shoreline, and you can easily snorkel on the reef from the beach.
Playa Punta Uva Arrecife quick facts
- 📍 Location: Google Maps (the name pinned in Google Maps is wrong!)
- 💰 Entrance fee: free
- 🚙 How to get there: from Puerto Viejo you can bike ride 8.5 km / 5.2 mi, drive 15 minutes, take the bus or catch a taxi
About Punta Uva
Puerto Viejo is the main tourist town in Costa Rica's South Caribbean and generally gets the most recognition.
If you're visiting the Caribbean Coast, you're most likely staying in or around Puerto Viejo. We did too.
Punta Uva is a tiny town just 8.5 km / 5.2 mi south of Puerto Viejo and has become a popular day trip. Meaning ‘Grape Point' in English, the town gets its name from the rocky cape with sea grapes growing on it.
There's not much to the town itself. Just a small maze of dusty streets, a few accommodation options and a handful of restaurants that tend to open when they feel like it. It's a nice antidote to the busier Puerto Viejo.
The beaches are what draw most visitors to Punta Uva, ourselves included.
There are two main beaches in Punta Uva, and the names can get a little confusing. People often mix them up and don't visit both. Or think they're visiting one, but actually went to the other.
- Playa Punta Uva – located to the north of the point, this is what some people get confused about. It's a nice beach, but it's not the beach in the area.
- Playa Punta Uva Arrecife – in our opinion, the best beach where you will find the perfect blue waters, white sand and palm trees. It's located south of the point.
Although Playa Punta Uva Arrecife is the best beach in the area, it's worth spending a whole day exploring Punta Uva as there are some other great activities to do. I'm going to share some more info about the Punta Uva area as a whole in this post.
How to get to Punta Uva
Punta Uva is best accessed from the nearby town of Puerto Viejo.
Assuming you are staying here or at one of the nearby beaches, you can reach Punta Uva in a number of ways.
- 🚲 By bike – it is approximately 8.5 km / 5.2 mi between downtown Puerto Viejo and Playa Punta Uva Arrecife. The ride is flat and quite easy most of the way, following Route 256 until you reach Punta Uva. From there, there are a couple of dirt roads to navigate your way to the beach. We loved this trip on our bikes, it is so lush and tropical!
- 🚌 By bus – if you're not up for a bike ride, there is a bus that runs along Route 256 between Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo a few times per day. If you're heading straight for Playa Punta Uva Arrecife, get off the bus here, just after Bungalows Punta Uva and walk a few hundred metres to the beach.
- 🚕 By taxi – you can take a taxi or tuk-tuk from Puerto Viejo. This is the most expensive option, a one-way journey should cost at least $10 USD if not more. If you do go with this option, be sure to organise your driver to come and collect you later on, as there aren't many taxis around Punta Uva.
- 🚗 By car – if you've got a rental car, it's an easy 15-minute drive from Puerto Viejo down Route 256. There is no official car park at the beach. You can park anywhere behind the line of palm trees at the edge of the sand, at the southern end of the beach.
When to visit Punta Uva
Punta Uva and the entire South Caribbean area operate on a different wet/dry season to the rest of the country.
It's a very warm, tropical climate and rain is possible year-round. But the driest months and the best time to visit is generally February – March and September – October.
In terms of the day and time to visit the Punta Uva area, I would suggest avoiding the weekends and holidays if possible. This is a very popular local spot, and the beach can get busy and noisy.
Things to do at Playa Punta Uva Arrecife
Playa Punta Uva Arrecife stretches for about 1 km / 0.6 mi. From the rocky point of Punta Uva in the north, down to a sandy curve where the beach naturally extends into Playa Grande in the south.
The whole beach is stunning, but we recommend heading to the southern end where there is no development.
Around here is where we set up for the day, funnily enough, it is labelled as Playa Punta Uva in Google Maps – no wonder people get confused!
📍 Pin the location of the BEST part of Playa Punta Uva Arrecife here
Swimming
Although it does vary throughout the year depending on the season, the water at Playa Punta Uva Arrecife is normally very calm.
It is so warm, it feels like floating in a big, relaxing bathtub. The perfect place for a swim!
Just watch out for coral and rocks on the ocean floor.
Sunbathing
The sand is soft and powdery and there are hundreds of palm trees to laze under.
This is the perfect place to while away an afternoon reading a book, taking a nap or working on your tan.
Snorkelling
The reef is very close to the shore, and within a few steps, you're swimming around corals.
Honestly, I don't know how healthy the reef is in this area, as cyclones and warming events have caused a lot of damage. It's still worth having a look, but keep your expectations low.
If you've got your own snorkels, I would recommend bringing them. Otherwise, you may be able to hire them from the Punta Uva Dive Centre.
Amenities at Playa Punta Uva Arrecife
The beauty of this beach is that there are barely any amenities. It's almost completely natural.
At the northern end of the beach, closest to the point, there is a handful of accommodations, restaurants and little stores.
Once you get further south (which we think is the best, most beautiful part of the beach), there is virtually nothing.
When we visited, we couldn't see any public toilets. Your best bet would be at one of the few restaurants.
Other things to do in Punta Uva
Playa Punta Uva
The other beach in Punta Uva, we would highly recommend checking out Playa Punta Uva while you're in the area.
Located to the north of the point, here, this beach looks and feels totally different to Arrecife.
The water here looked deeper, and a little rougher as the waves crashed onto the point. It was still very swimmable (when we visited), and the water was a striking deep green colour.
You can snorkel around the tip of the point, but be careful with stronger currents and waves here. If you don't have your own snorkels, some of the stalls on the beach that rent kayaks also have snorkel gear.
Do be aware that the swell here can be quite large at certain times of the year (usually January – April) and can become a popular beach for surfers.
Explore Punta Uva
Punta Uva is the rocky point after which the area is named. You can actually walk out onto the point, and there are a number of trails through the jungle.
There is a trail that traverses the point from Playa Punta Uva to Arrecife and vice versa.
You can walk all the way out to the end of the point to a lookout and get a great view of both beaches. On the left-hand side (as you're facing out to the ocean) there are a couple of small sea caves to have a look at too.
Be sure to keep your eyes peeled, there are sloths, monkeys and other creatures in the jungle here.
Kayak at Sloth Point
In addition to soaking up all the tropical vibes on Arrecife Beach, we really enjoyed kayaking at Sloth Point.
Located about halfway up the beach at Playa Punta Uva here, Sloth Point is a small river that leads back from the sand into the jungle.
It’s known as Sloth Point for the high number of sloths hanging out in the area, but its official name is Quebrada Ernesto.
You can rent kayaks on the beach at Playa Punta Uva and paddle upstream, looking for wildlife along the way. We managed to spot four sloths (all three-toed), tons of turtles in the water, toucans and some howler monkeys making noise up in the trees.
It is such a beautiful paddle, with trees and growth overhanging the river, and nothing but the sounds of nature.
It took us about one hour to kayak up to the end of the river and back.
We suggest organising your kayak rental for 1 hour. Unless you also want to kayak in the sea and out to Punta Uva, in which case we'd say organise a rental for 1.5 – 2 hours.
We highly recommend renting your kayak from Ricardo at Kayaks Punta Uva. Some of the other stalls quoted us ridiculously high prices (like $20 USD per person for a 1-hour double kayak rental?!), but he was very reasonable.
We agreed on 8,000 Colones (~ $15 USD) for a double kayak for 1 hour. He was happy for us to take a little longer than that too.
He has a sign on the southern end of the beach, but I would suggest contacting him via WhatsApp in advance, and he will meet you on the beach with a kayak. His number is +506 8839 8386.
If you want to spot a lot of wildlife, I would recommend taking a guided kayak tour. The local guides are very familiar with the area, and have laser vision when it comes to seeing sloths and other animals hiding in the trees!
It's hard to see, but that furry lump in the tree is a sloth! I didn't pack my camera on the kayak, so apologies he (or she) is so hard to see. But we spotted 4 of them along the river!
Sea kayaking or SUP'ing
If you're willing to tackle the rougher ocean, the sea caves at Punta Uva are best seen from a kayak or SUP.
You can combine this with kayaking at Sloth Point.
The conditions do change throughout the year, and I don't believe it would be calm enough to do this all the time.
But if the water looks okay, you can rent a kayak or SUP and paddle all the way out to the point. You can even go around to Playa Punta Uva Arrecife too if you’re up for it.
Be warned this is quite a tough paddle, even in good conditions!
Scuba diving
The Punta Uva Dive Centre offers scuba diving out on the reef. They do PADI courses or fun dives for qualified divers.
The Pacific Coast is better known for larger marine life, like sharks, rays and turtles. But the Caribbean Coast has a lot of reefs, with a huge variety of fish. It’s still very possible to see nurse and reef sharks, turtles and some species of rays.
You can get in touch with Punta Uva Dive Centre via their website to organise diving.
Playa Grande
A natural extension of Playa Punta Uva Arrecife in the south, Playa Grande is a long stretch of sand in a crescent-shaped bay.
The beach visually looks similar to Arrecife, however, the waves are a bit rougher here as it is less sheltered by the reef.
During the peak surf season, this is a decent swell for more advanced surfers.
It's probably not worth visiting if you want to swim, but it's a nice bike ride through the palms from Arrecife. It looks like the road ends on the map, but if you're on a bike you can get through.
Head for this location.
What to bring for a day at Punta Uva
- 👙 Swimwear – you are definitely going to want to swim here!
- 🧖🏽♀️ Towel – to dry off and lay down on the beach.
- 💧 Water or other drinks – there aren't too many shops or restaurants, especially at the southern end of the beach, and it's hot and humid so you need to stay hydrated.
- 🍉 Snacks and/or lunch – if you want to spend your day on the sand, or don't want to pay for an expensive meal, come with your own food.
- 🥥 Something to open coconuts – we found tons of coconuts within easy reach here. We recommend carrying a small knife and metal straws so you can always open a coconut for a refreshing drink!
- 🤿 Snorkels – if you have them, you can jump in right from the sand at Playa Punta Uva Arrecife.
- 🎒 Waterproof bag – if you plan to go kayaking, it's good to protect your things and allows you to take your phone/camera on the kayak.
- 🌞 Sun protection – hat, sunglasses and reef-safe sunscreen. There is also a lot of shade from the palm trees.
- 🦟 Insect repellent – we didn't really use it, but it can be a bit buggy on the river at Sloth Point.
- 💰 Cash – most places around Punta Uva don't take credit cards.
Restaurants in Punta Uva
If you're driving a rental car, or riding a bike, there is a great cafe on Route 256 between Puerto Viejo and Punta Uva. GypSea Cafe is located in Playa Chiquita and serves up fresh and healthy breakfasts, bowls, smoothies and coffees.
Otherwise, there are a handful of options in Punta Uva:
- Arrecife Restaurant – we ate here when we visited. They have a monopoly in terms of location, right on the beachfront with a gorgeous grove of palm trees. However, the food itself is nothing special and the prices are quite high.
- La Sirena – the best restaurant in Punta Uva with rave reviews. They serve a lot of seafood and ceviche, as well as pizzas, burgers and great cocktails! The space is really cute too.
- Selvin's – located on Route 256 just as you are arriving in Punta Uva, Selvin's is famous for its local cuisine and traditional Caribbean dishes. Try the Caribbean chicken or run down/rondon, a traditional seafood soup.
- Restaurant Eden Beach – located inside the Punta Uva Bungalows, Eden Beach is a little on the pricey side, offering a mix of international and local cuisine, like burgers, pizzas, wings, casados and seafood.
Do note that things in Punta Uva are pretty laid back, and there's a chance these restaurants won't be open, even when Google says they are.
Can you stay in Punta Uva?
It is possible to stay in Punta Uva.
It's very small compared to Puerto Viejo, with just a handful of restaurants and amenities, and not too much to do besides relax on a gorgeous beach.
Unless you have a rental car, so you can easily travel between Punta Uva and Puerto Viejo, I would suggest a few nights in Punta Uva in addition to a stay in Puerto Viejo.
You can first check out Puerto Viejo and all the activities and beaches around there. And then move down to Punta Uva for a very relaxing few days on the beach.
This is a place you would want to completely chill out and do nothing!
Hotels in Punta Uva
There are a number of beautiful accommodation options in Punta Uva. Most of them are located right on the beach, or within a few steps.
- Cabinas Selvin y Blanca – the value for money here is incredible. At first glance, the rooms look like they belong in a fancy hotel! Everything is modern, bright and clean with lovely styling. Tucked a short walk back from the beach just off the main road, Selvin's restaurant is on-site. Their basic rooms don't have kitchens, but for the price, it's still worth it.
- 💰 $70 USD + per night check prices and browse photos here
- Arrecife Punta Uva – situated on a gorgeous stretch of Arrecife Beach, this property features a number of ‘cabinas' or small cabins. The wooden cabins have balconies with sea views and hammocks to laze on. I would recommend the studio or apartment so you have your own kitchen facilities.
- 💰 $100 USD + per night check prices and browse photos here
- Pachamama Jungle River Lodge – villa-style rooms nestled into the jungle on the river, you'll have wildlife and nature on your doorstep. But you're still just a short walk to the beach. All the villas are self-contained with kitchens, so you can cook your own meals.
- 💰 $100 USD + per night check prices and browse photos here
- Bungalows Punta Uva – this property is one of the largest in the area. They have villa-style rooms, most with kitchenettes. It's a stone's throw from Playa Punta Uva, and their grounds are lush and tropical, with a huge pool, restaurant and plenty of areas to hang out.
- 💰💰 $150 USD + per night check prices and browse photos here
- aWa Beach Hotel – a seriously boujee boutique hotel. Located beachfront of Playa Punta Uva, this property is stunning! The styling is impeccable, the rooms are spacious and well-equipped and the pools and beachfront lounge areas are perfect for relaxing. Buffet breakfast is included daily too. ⭐️ top pick
- 💰💰 $200 USD + per night check prices and browse photos here
- Tree House Lodge – a really quirky and unique option at the northern end of Playa Punta Uva. This sustainable property is nestled into the jungle, and the rooms are created in harmony with the environment. You can stay in an open-air treehouse, a converted American school bus or a dome-shaped suite with a private hot tub.
- 💰💰💰 $250 USD + per night check prices and browse photos here
Because of the limited number of food options and the high prices in Punta Uva, we would recommend finding accommodation with kitchen facilities. Come stocked with some groceries from Puerto Viejo and cook a few of your meals to keep the costs down.
If you're camping in Costa Rica, there are some amazing places along Playa Punta Uva Arrecife to park and set up. You can drive right up to the line of palms and have plenty of shade. If you want a formal campsite with more amenities, check out Camping Arrecife or Olguita's Place.
Playa Punta Uva Arrecife and the whole Punta Uva area was a tropical paradise! This is a great day trip from Puerto Viejo and we highly recommend cycling down and checking out all the different beaches and activities on offer.
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