There’s a shift happening right now in American travel, one that doesn’t make headlines but shows up in booking patterns, airport traffic, and tourism reports. Families and couples who used to plan their annual Hawaii trip are reconsidering. Some aren’t even mentioning it out loud to friends. They’re just quietly booking flights south instead – to Costa Rica.
The change isn’t about falling out of love with Hawaii’s turquoise waters or dramatic volcanic landscapes. It’s more practical than that. Let’s be real, something fundamental has changed in how affordable a Hawaii vacation feels, and travelers are responding by looking elsewhere for that tropical escape they crave.
Hotel Prices Have Reached a Breaking Point
Hawaii’s average daily hotel rate climbed to roughly $361 in August of 2025, up from $290 in 2019. That’s a jump of about one-quarter in just six years. On the Island of Hawaii specifically, visitors paid around $444 per night in August 2025, compared to $280 in 2019. Kauai wasn’t far behind either.
Meanwhile, Costa Rica offers a completely different value equation. Visitors can choose from rustic rainforest cabins, family-friendly hotels, and luxurious eco-resorts, often for less than what they would pay in Hawaii or the Bahamas. It’s not just about finding cheap rooms. It’s about getting quality experiences without the sticker shock that now comes standard with Hawaiian accommodations.
Costa Rica’s Tourism Boom Tells the Real Story
Costa Rica received approximately 2.66 million tourists by air in 2024, the highest number of visitors in 16 years, representing a roughly 8% increase compared to 2023. That growth didn’t happen by accident. Of those visitors, around 1.5 million were U.S. nationals, representing close to 60% of the total.
In 2024, Costa Rica ranked 12th in US travel demand, surpassing established European destinations like Germany and Portugal. Certain regions within the country saw even more dramatic surges. Playa Nosara experienced a roughly 46% increase in US visitors over 90 days, while La Fortuna showed close to a 29% increase during the same timeframe.
Hawaii’s Visitor Numbers Are Declining
Hawaii isn’t collapsing, exactly. It’s just not growing the way it used to. Statewide, there were a total of approximately 9.69 million visitors in 2024, a slight increase compared with 2023 but down nearly 7% compared with 2019. Maui took the hardest hit, which makes sense given the 2023 wildfires, but the overall trend suggests more than just one island struggling.
Hawaii’s Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism forecasted that just over 7 million U.S. travelers would visit the Aloha State in 2025, a decline approaching 3% from the prior year. In July 2025, there were approximately 873,000 total visitors to the Hawaiian Islands, down more than 4% from July 2024, with total visitor spending dropping by a similar percentage. These aren’t catastrophic drops, honestly, but they point to a cooling enthusiasm.
The Price Tag Beyond the Hotel Room
Hotels are just the beginning. Restaurant prices are very high in Hawaii, with visitors paying on average between $55 and $75 per person for a meal in a standard sit-down restaurant, plus the mandatory 15% to 20% tip. Some upscale places easily exceed $100 per person. Even grabbing lunch at a casual spot adds up fast.
Compare that to Costa Rica. In 2025, a simple lunch in a tourist town can rival prices in Miami or Los Angeles, with national park fees climbing and tour prices surging. Wait, that sounds expensive too. Here’s the thing, though – Costa Rica still offers budget-friendly alternatives like local sodas (small family-run restaurants) and food trucks that Hawaii just doesn’t have as many of anymore. The infrastructure for mid-range travelers is still intact in Costa Rica, while Hawaii increasingly caters to luxury spenders.
Flight Accessibility and New Routes
Southwest Airlines ramped up connectivity with numerous weekly flights between Austin and San José and from Denver to Liberia, unlocking visitor flows from previously underserved metropolitan areas, while United Airlines complemented the strategy with nonstop service from Austin and Salt Lake City. These new routes make Costa Rica genuinely easier to reach for millions of Americans who don’t live on the West Coast.
The flight times are comparable too. For someone in Texas or the Mountain West, getting to Costa Rica can actually be faster than island-hopping to Hawaii. Costa Rica’s relatively close location to the United States makes it an attractive option for travelers seeking international experiences without long-haul flights, and it’s more practical than Europe for travelers seeking a shorter stay of a week or less.
Biodiversity That Rivals Anything Hawaii Offers
Let’s talk about what you actually see when you get there. Although Costa Rica is a small territory, it makes up nearly 5% of the earth’s biodiversity, with over a quarter of its land protected through national parks and wildlife reserves. That’s not marketing hype. It’s a measurable scientific fact.
The territory is divided into 30 national parks, 19 wildlife refuges, 8 biological reserves, and a series of protected areas that captivate lovers of ecotourism activities. You can see sloths, toucans, scarlet macaws, sea turtles, and monkeys in their natural habitats. Despite its small size, the country is home to nearly six percent of the world’s total biodiversity. Hawaii has its own unique ecosystems, obviously, but Costa Rica’s sheer density of wildlife encounters is hard to beat.
The Middle-Class Traveler Is Being Priced Out of Hawaii
While Hawaii visitors with middle-class household incomes declined, visitors from higher-income brackets rose. This isn’t a conspiracy – it’s a deliberate strategy. Hawaii’s image has increasingly become associated with luxury and premium offers, which appeals to some travelers but creates distance between the destination and mid-range travelers, an important segment for long-term sustainability.
In September, visitors were spending an average of $270 per person per day on lodging, food, entertainment, and shopping, up from the $196 they were spending per day in 2019. That nearly 40% jump in daily spending isn’t because people decided to splurge more – it’s because everything costs more. Families who used to visit every year or every other year are now stretching that to every three years, or they’re choosing somewhere else entirely.
Costa Rica’s Infrastructure for Sustainable Tourism
The February 2025 opening of Nekajui, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, marked the brand’s first Central American presence, while April 2025 saw Waldorf Astoria Costa Rica Punta Cacique debut with 180 rooms. High-end brands are arriving, yes, but Costa Rica still maintains its eco-lodge tradition and mid-range hotel infrastructure.
From a sustainability standpoint, Costa Rica is a global leader, with over 25% of its land protected through national parks and wildlife reserves, and the country runs on more than 98% renewable energy. That environmental commitment appeals strongly to travelers who want their vacation dollars to support conservation, not destruction. With only roughly 0.03% of the world’s surface area, Costa Rica is home to over 5% of the world’s biodiversity, and since the earliest pioneers arrived in the 1970s and 80s, Costa Rica has set an example, with almost 30% of its territory protected today.
