🇨🇷 Costa Rica · South Pacific (Osa)
Drake Bay (Bahía Drake, named after the English navigator Francis Drake, who according to tradition anchored here in the 16th century) is a remote, wild corner of the Osa Peninsula, at the southern end of Costa Rica's Pacific. It's one of the gateways to Corcovado National Park, described by National Geographic magazine as one of the most biologically intense places on the planet, and the departure point for the Isla del Caño Biological Reserve, famous for its diving and snorkeling.
Getting to Drake Bay is part of the adventure: for a long time it could only be reached by sea or air, and even today the overland trip means rough roads, while arriving by boat down the Sierpe river and along the coast is the most popular option. The village, small and surrounded by jungle, keeps an isolated, authentic feel, with lodges hidden in the vegetation, untouched beaches and overflowing wildlife at the doorstep of one of the great natural sanctuaries of the Americas.
This guide runs through the essentials of Drake Bay with a practical eye: access to Corcovado, the tours to Isla del Caño, the coastal trail and the local nature, how to get there (by river, sea or air), where to sleep and eat, and tips for a remote area. A destination for nature lovers willing to travel far in exchange for exceptional biodiversity.
Drake Bay takes its name from the English privateer and navigator Sir Francis Drake, who tradition says anchored in this bay around 1579 during his voyage around the world. For centuries it was a remote part of the Osa Peninsula, home to small communities of fishermen and farmers, practically cut off by land. The creation of Corcovado National Park in 1975 and the ecotourism boom turned Drake Bay into one of the bases of nature tourism in the south of the country. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The country's longest coastal province, from the Central Pacific to the deep south: from the historic coffee port of Puntarenas to the cloud forests of Monteverde, from the beaches of Manuel Antonio to the wild jewel of the Osa Peninsula and Corcovado, 'the most biologically intense place on Earth'.
Read the history of Puntarenas →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
At some point in 1579, an English ship loaded with silver stolen from the Spanish slipped along the Central American Pacific coast looking for somewhere to careen its hull far from its pursuers. In command was Sir Francis Drake —a hero to the English Crown, a pirate with a price on his head to Spain— in the middle of his circumnavigation of the globe aboard the Golden Hind. Local tradition holds that it was this hidden bay on the Osa Peninsula that gave him shelter, and that this is where the name on every map today comes from: Bahía Drake, Drake Bay.
That voyage around the world was the second in history after Magellan and Elcano's, and the first in which the captain survived the whole trip.
The legend, deeply rooted in the area, even holds that Drake may have hidden treasure in the region, which for centuries has fed stories of buried treasure on the Osa Peninsula and on nearby Isla del Caño, which was a pre-Columbian burial site. Although Drake's exact presence at this spot is not documented with absolute certainty, the place name stuck and the figure of the English navigator is part of the local imagination.
Beyond the legend, the bay and the Osa Peninsula were inhabited long before by pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples, linked to the culture that produced the enigmatic stone spheres of the Diquís, found in southern Costa Rica and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. That historical depth precedes the brief, legendary stopover of the English privateer by millennia.
For centuries, Drake Bay and the Osa Peninsula were one of the most isolated and wildest regions in Costa Rica. With no roads reliably connecting it to the rest of the country, the area lived off fishing, subsistence farming and, in the 20th century, off activities such as gold and timber extraction, which put pressure on its forests. Access was essentially by sea or air.
The turning point came in 1975 with the creation of Corcovado National Park, a key decision to protect one of the last great humid tropical forests on the Central American Pacific. The protection of Corcovado, together with the later Isla del Caño Biological Reserve, halted deforestation and mining across much of the peninsula and laid the foundations for a new economic model based on conservation.
From the eighties and nineties on, the worldwide ecotourism boom found in Drake Bay an ideal destination: pristine nature, exceptional biodiversity and an isolation that turned from obstacle into attraction. Lodges hidden in the jungle appeared, along with tour operators for Corcovado and Isla del Caño and a local economy given over to nature tourism. Today, despite the development, Drake Bay keeps its remote character and its role as one of the great gateways to the wild nature of southern Costa Rica.
Long before any European navigator arrived, the Osa Peninsula and southern Costa Rica were inhabited by highly sophisticated Indigenous peoples. The region is part of the Diquís cultural area, famous the world over for its enigmatic stone spheres: hundreds of granite balls carved with remarkable precision, ranging in size from a few centimeters to more than two meters, whose exact meaning is still being studied.
The chiefdom settlements with stone spheres of the Diquís were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2014, recognizing the exceptional value of this tradition, which flourished above all between 300 and 1500 AD. These societies were organized into chiefdoms and developed rich goldwork, pottery and, of course, stone carving.
Nearby Isla del Caño, today a biological reserve off Drake Bay, also had a special role: stone spheres and traces of pre-Columbian burials have been found there, which suggests it may have been a ceremonial or funerary site of importance for these peoples. That historical depth, of millennia, is a reminder that the region was inhabited and culturally active territory long before the brief, legendary stopover of the English privateer who gave it its name.
The great natural draw of Drake Bay is Corcovado National Park, created in 1975 and considered one of the most biologically intense places on the planet, in a famous description by National Geographic magazine. Its more than 400 km² concentrate an extraordinary share of the country's biodiversity: it holds the largest primary humid tropical forest on the Central American Pacific coast and species that are emblematic and threatened elsewhere in the country.
Corcovado is one of the last refuges of Baird's tapir, of the jaguar and the puma, of Costa Rica's four monkey species (howler, white-faced, squirrel and spider), of the scarlet macaw, of the white-lipped peccary and of an astonishing variety of birds, amphibians, reptiles and insects. Around 367 bird species, 140 mammals and 117 amphibians and reptiles have been recorded in the park, astonishing figures for such a small area. That wealth made the Osa Peninsula a world reference destination for biologists, nature photographers and ecotourists.
Protecting Corcovado was not without friction. From the seventies on, the area lived through a gold rush: hundreds of small-scale miners, the so-called 'oreros', went down to the park's rivers to pan sand for nuggets, altering riverbeds and putting pressure on the wildlife. In the mid-1980s the Costa Rican government decided to expel them from the park, in a tense episode not free of confrontation, to stop the forest's degradation. Creating and consolidating the protected area thus meant decades of patrolling, compensation payments and the relocation of residents.
Today the heart of the park is the Sirena biological station, an old research post deep in the jungle reached by boat or on foot after hours of walking, which has become a byword for the most spectacular wildlife sightings in the country. Access to all of Corcovado is strictly regulated —with mandatory guides, daily capacity limits and advance booking— to balance tourist visits with the preservation of an irreplaceable natural heritage, of which Drake Bay is one of the main gateways.