Buses leave the Puntarenas station for several destinations including: Liberia, Quepos, Jacó, Monteverde, San José, Cobanó, Santa Teresa Montezuma.
**STATION CHANGE : All of the bus stations are no longer grouped in one location. The TQP (Quepos, Puntarenas, Jaco) buses now arrive and depart from the Municipalidad de Puntarenas, which is about 4 blocks from the other station. (Jan 2017)
one helpful traveller has given this location as the new bus terminal (Aug 2018) https://goo.gl/maps/9JR2QhF81ep
Bus station to the Ferry
The Puntarenas bus station is located about 15 blocks from the ferry terminal. A taxi between the two will cost you about 1500₡. You can walk but it is far when carrying your luggage and it shouldn’t be hard to find other travellers to share a taxi.
Puntarenas to Santa Teresa
Get from the bus station to the ferry and cross. In Paquera there will be a bus waiting for you to take you to Cóbano. This trip takes about a 1.5hr and will cost around 1800₡. If you end up connecting with the bus coming from San José you may be able to stay on all the way to Santa Teresa. If not, you get off in Cobanó. The rest of the trip form Cobanó to Santa Teresa takes about 40min and costs 1000₡.
Puntarenas to Quepos
See photo of schedule below. Price is2605₡ as of Jan 2019 and it takes about 3hrs until you arrive in Quepos.
Puntarenas to Liberia
There are 10 buses per day to Libera between 5am and 5pm. The schedule is posted below. See photo of schedule below. As of February 2018 the price is 2875₡. The trip takes about 3hrs. Be early as buses can leave early.
Puntarenas to Monteverde
See photo of schedule below for buses to Monteverde. 1500₡, ~3hrs
Check out the route if you are coming from Santa Teresa: Santa Teresa to Monteverde
Puntarenas to Jacó
See photo of schedule below for buses to Jacó. ~ 1500₡, ~1.5hrs
Puntarenas to San José
There are both directo and indirecto buses to San José. We are told that only the indirecto buses pass the airport.
This bus does a few different routes (San Ramón, Alajuela, Esparza, El Roble). You can see them here on the Empresarios Unidos website and see which route number goes where.
The schedules are also listed on their website: Empresarios Unidos schedule. We hope their website is up to date! There is also a photo of the indirecto schedule below.
The trip from Puntarenas to San José costs 2585₡ as of May 2017 and takes about 3hrs.
Puntarenas to Cañas and Tilarán
One helpful traveller has told us that there is one bus per day at 11:45am to Cañas and onto Tilarán. Thanks, Doc!
Ferry to the bus station
Cost of a taxi: 1500₡, 5 minutes
Ferry Schedule
Puntarenas to Paquera
- 05:00, 09:00, 11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:30*
(*no connecting bus heading all the way to Santa Teresa/Mal Pais, Montezuma)
Paquera to Puntarenas
- 05:30, 09:00, 11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:00
***here is an extremely useful number = call tel: 26612084 (then press 4) and you can get the current ferry schedule.
Help your fellow traveller
If you have taken any of the buses on this page, please drop us a comment below about how the trip went, what time you left, how long it took and what it cost. And, definitely let us know if we have anything wrong.
Lets help each other in our travels!
Catching the 9am ferry from Puntarenas (810Cs), arriving around 10:30am. There is a direct bus to Montezuma waiting at the ferry port for 2150Cs. Goes through Cobano but don’t get off, it will continue on.
We traveled from Puntarenas to Quepos today. It took us 3h15m to reach Quepos. The price was 2500 colones per person and the buses leave almost every hour from the Terminal Puntarenas-Quepos (on maps me).
Hi! We were trying to get from puntarenas to Monteverde on a Sunday, and there were only two busses. One at 2.30 and one at 3.30. The 2.30 one takes a longer route.
We asked several people and it seems that extra busses only go on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
How do we get from Santa Teresa to Puntarenas? There’s a bus leaving here at 6 am but what does that bus look like and where do I wait for it? Please help.
Just took the Liberia bus to Puntarenas cost is now 3100 takes about 2.5 hours at 7:45am. The hours that are posted on here seem to be exact.
I am looking for the bus from Puntarenas to Monteverde, what is the current timetable? Or is there shared bus possibility on Saturday, 14.12.2019?
Hi there,
We are looking for the easiest way to get to Santa Teresa from Fortuna (how to get to Puntarenas?)
Liefs, melissa
Can someone tell me where the bus stop is in Puntarenas. Looking for the one that will take you from Puntarenas to Quepos.
Thanks in advance.
The Puntarenas – Jacó – Quepos bus goes from Calle 1 between Avenida 4 and Avenida 2 (near the cruise ship wharf). There is a ticket office and the buses are green.