Costa Rica’s 28 National Parks celebrate the National Park Day on August 22nd.

The National Parks in Costa Rica offers visitors an impressive variety in wildlife, vegetation, scenery and climate. From the dry tropical forest to the “paramo” or wet desert in Costa Rica’s highest peak, visitors may have their pick as to what they would like to adventure in.

A recent study revealed the most popular parks among visitors placing the Poas Volcano National Park in first place. This comes as no surprise since the Poas Volcano is classified as having the largest crater of an inactive volcano in the world (diameter of 1.3 kilometers). When compared to last year’s 307,000 visitors, the Poas Volcano National Park had an impressive influx during its first semester in 2008 with a total of 210,662 visitors.

The second most visited National Park is the Manuel Antonio Park located in Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Coast. Manuel Antonio National Park offers visitors tropical humid jungle vegetation and amazing wildlife. The park offers several trails which will take visitors through lush vegetation, emerald colored waters and white sand beaches. Aside from the park’s idyllic beach backdrop, nature lovers will marvel in observing over 352 bird species, 109 mammals and 346 fauna species.

As for the National Park’s third visited park is the Irazu Volcano National Park. The Irazu Volcano is a popular attraction due to its lunar-like terrain and proximity to other tourist attractions in the Cartago region.

The Arenal Volcano National Park registered a very low amount of 47,000 visitors, but realistically this number is much higher due to the fact that the volcano can observed from almost anywhere in La Fortuna and there is no need in going into the park.

Other parks in the Caribbean are more popular among the European visitors and the Northern Region Parks are slowly picking up thanks to the Daniel Oduber International Airport’s increasing traffic.