Monteverde, Costa Rica

Hotel Belmar

Price per night from$395.05

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD395.05), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Hotel Belmar Photos

Style

Luxuriating in lo-fi

Setting

Head in the clouds

Explore

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High in the cloudforest of Monteverde, conservation-pioneering Hotel Belmar promises some seriously switched-off solitude. Nature-led pursuits and hazy evenings punctuated by shooting stars and the occasional hoot of a howler monkey are on the agenda. Dips in the springwater pond, horseback rides through lush Puntarenas countryside, beers from the on-site brewery and cheese from the hotel’s organic farm are on hand to unlock cloud-nine relaxation mode.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

Two signature Garden To Glass cocktails or mocktails. For stays of three or more nights, you also get $100 to spend at the hotel

Facilities

Photos Hotel Belmar facilities

Need to know

Rooms

26, including three suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Check-in is from 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability, and guests are welcome to store luggage and make use of the hotel facilities if arriving early or departing late.

More details

Rates include à la carte breakfast in Celajes Restaurant, with coffee sourced from Hotel Belmar’s own organic farm and tea brewed using herbs from the kitchen garden.

Also

The hotel's main building (including its reception and restaurant) is accessible, as is the Juice Bar in the chalet building, the spa and the yoga studio. There's a ramp for access into Cervecería Belmar and one of the Peninsula Rooms has been adapted for guests with limited mobility.

At the hotel

Free WiFi. In rooms: tea- and coffee-making kit with coffee and tea from the hotel’s organic farm, minibar with beer from the on-site brewery, bathrobes, slippers and organic Aromas bath products.

Our favourite rooms

All of the rooms and suites at Hotel Belmar deliver chalet chic with colorful Costa Rican flourishes — a unique artwork here, a hand-carved sink there — as well as mist-tickled forest views. But the clue’s in the name of the Canopy Room, where the top-floor location, wraparound windows and dual-level terrace (sporting an open-air soaking tub) allow you to fully plunge into forest bathing.

Poolside

No pool, but the natural springwater pond in the garden is a cooling summer (or bracing winter) treat; there’s a hot tub in the garden gazebo, with 360-degree forest views, should you require a warm-up afterwards.

Spa

There’s a massage room for indulging in a post-hike leg rub or full-body massage.

Packing tips

In the Monteverde cloud forest, hiker-style practicality should be your north star, and a pocket guide to Costa Rica birdlife will also go some way to helping you identify your quails from your quetzels.

Also

One free yoga class is included with your stay. Please note that there’s no air-conditioning at Hotel Belmar, but with temperatures consistently in the high-teens celsius, you're unlikely to miss it.

Pet‐friendly

One lucky pooch, weighing up to 30lbs, can come along for a one-off fee of $35: please note that Fido will need to stay on a leash outside of your room and is not permitted in public areas. See more pet-friendly hotels in Monteverde.

Children

Little Smiths are welcome at Hotel Belmar, with plenty of outdoorsy adventures to keep them entertained. Peninsula Rooms sleep four and single sofa-beds can be made up in several other room categories; baby cots are available free on request.

Sustainability efforts

There’s a whole circle of life going on at Hotel Belmar: produce from the hotel’s own organic farm and brewery — coffee, kombucha, avocados, cheese, beer — fills your plate (and glass) at mealtimes, with any organic waste composted to enrich the very soil from whence it came. The hotel is certified carbon neutral and has contributed to local reforestation efforts, leading to restored cloud forest habitats and increased biodiversity. The hotel also manages the private Savia nature reserve, which provides guided experiences that foster conservation awareness and contribute to the education of local kids. In addition, the hotel offers a permanent 25 per cent discount to Costa Ricans at the hotel and its various bars and restaurants, and it helps to fund local projects that turn plastic waste into sustainable building materials. For the interiors, materials and artworks were sourced from within the country, as were the natural bath products. And basics, such as reduced water and energy consumption, and avoidance of single-use plastics, are covered, too.

Food and Drink

Photos Hotel Belmar food and drink

Top Table

Grab a terrace table for the win: the forest symphony is in full swing at sunset and a cosmic sky ballet awaits stargazers after dark.

Dress Code

There’s no formal dress code at Hotel Belmar, but dining under the stars, as the cloud forest cools, will require layers.

Hotel restaurant

Hotel Belmar’s sustainable farm-to-table philosophy is writ large at Celajes, where all ingredients are sourced locally, and often from the hotel’s own Finca Madre Tierra farm. The Madre Tierra cheese plate is as good a place to start as any, but you can also gorge on slow-cooked pork ribs, mushroom risotto and a green garden curry. Complement with imaginative garden-to-glass cocktails or home-brewed beer and finish with a sweet orange and cardamom flan that’s almost as impressive as the restaurant’s sweeping sunset views. 

The hotel’s own taproom, Cervecería Belmar, also revels in low food mileage, with casual local eats and a range of beers brewed right here in the cloud forest. There’s also homemade kombucha and mead made with Monteverde honey, plus cocktails and mocktails bursting with herby and fruity garden aromas, all dished with forest pond vistas. 

There’s live music at the restaurant on Fridays and at the taproom on Saturdays. 

Hotel bar

Celajes Bar specialises in cocktails and mocktails. Try the Garden Gibson Martini, pimped with pickles from the farm, or a house-made kombucha with strawberry, ginger and passionfruit. Mosey over to the Juice Bar in the Chalet building for smoothies, snacks and coffee sourced from (where else?) Finca Madre Tierra.

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 6.30am until 10am and dinner and drinks orders are taken until 9pm.

Room service

There’s a dedicated menu available for in-room dining between noon and 8.30pm.

Location

Photos Hotel Belmar location
Address
Hotel Belmar
Monteverde
Provincia de Puntarenas
Costa Rica

Hotel Belmar is a rural retreat that floats high over the cloud forests of Monteverde, with views that stretch all the way to the Gulf of Nicoya on clear days; it’s around three-and-a-half hours from the Costa Rican capital of San José.

Planes

The closest airports are Guanacaste, two-and-a-half hours away in Liberia, and Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) in San José, around three-and-a-half hours’ drive. Transfers can be booked in advance and cost from $250 one -way.

Automobiles

Monteverde’s elevated location makes for some spectacular scenery on the road in — with the challenging terrain to match. However, if you’re that way inclined, cars and 4x4s are readily available at either airport and there’s free parking on-site.

Worth getting out of bed for

Hotel Belmar is rightly proud of its sustainability initiatives. And there are plenty of ways you can immerse yourself first-hand in its nature-first ethos. Start with a tour of Finca Madre Tierra, the Belmar’s organic farm, where the cheese that fills Cervecería Belmar’s glorious grilled sandwiches comes from. There’s also a chance to milk cows, pick coffee beans and press sugarcane. 

The hotel’s private nature reserve throws up a smorgasbord of sustainable multisensory options. Pack your notebook and pocket-glass and take to this network of forest trails, treetop platforms and suspension bridges on a dawn bird-spotting expedition (eyes peeled for the Disney princess plumage of the aptly named Resplendent Quetzal). Catch sunset from the canopy on a nightfall excursion and learn to tune into animal noises in the dark. Or steel yourself to scale the hollow interior of a ficus tree, at the top of which — 30 metres above the forest floor— you’re rewarded with canopy views and a hammock to rest in. 

There are plenty of lower-octane options, too: a yoga studio, a tranquil swimming pond with a broad wooden sun deck, a hiding-in-plain-sight forest hot tub, and the chance to mix cocktails using herbs and flowers plucked by your own fair hand from the kitchen garden. 

Local restaurants

You’re unlikely to want to wrench yourself away from the Belmar’s polished plates. However, if you’re determined to dine out during your stay, there are several options worth investigating in and around Monteverde. Choose Valle Escondido for similarly sustainable farm-to-table ethics (and wood-fired pizza,) and Kiré for yet more of those swoonsome cloud forest sunsets. 

Local cafés

Whether you can find a better local brew than Hotel Belmar’s home-grown Finca Madre Tierra coffee is not for us to say. But there are a few neighbouring joints worth checking out, with both nearby Kaffi and Café Monteverde offering plantation tours and tasting sessions along with your morning cup of joe. 

Local bars

If you’ve developed a taste for home-grown cocktails and beers, Natu Speakeasy delivers theirs with some serious sustainability credentials: a bar counter made from recycled bottles, handcrafted artisan furnishings and, of course, ingredients sourced from Monteverde’s bountiful larder. Nearby Beer Garden Monteverde is your happy, hoppy go-to for live music and amber nectar. 

Reviews

Photos Hotel Belmar reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this immersed-in-nature idyll in the Costa Rica cloudforest and unpacked jar after delicious jar of the hotel’s homemade jams, pickles and kombuchas, a full account of their birdsong-soundtracked break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hotel Belmar in Monteverde… 

Hotel Belmar is a love letter to conservation and sustainability, counting carbon-neutral certification, reforestation and an organic farm among its many protective credentials. But there's much more to this tantalising mash-up of tropical panache and cozy cabin-like interiors, where local art — here a beloved handwoven jaguar tapestry, there a vibrant toucan painting — dots the walls, and polished garden-fresh plates in the restaurant are just as vibrant. 

In the grounds, you’ll find a bona fide cloud forest brewery, a juice bar serving homemade kombucha and a pond-edge sun deck poised for sunset yoga.  

Plush, hardwood-clad rooms showcase widescreen views of Nicoya peninsula that will leave you (quite literally) misty-eyed, and the resolute absence of TVs means fewer man-made distractions from the vast outdoors. Try stepping onto your balcony at dawn: sure, the altitude here may already be enough to take your breath away but, if not, the surprise sight of a sloth silently traversing the canopy surely will. 

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Price per night from $395.05

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