Costa Rica Gear Review

Gear 2024-03-22

Reviewing new or noteworthy gear from my trip to Costa Rica.

  • Merlin Bird ID ★★★★★
  • Atelier Longue Distance — Sakabouf ★★★★★
  • Gaia GPS ★★★★★
  • Garmin — InReach Mini 2 ★★★★☆
  • Katadyn — BeFree ★★★☆☆
  • Salomon — XA Pro 3D V8 ★★☆☆☆

Merlin Bird ID ★★★★★

Gratis for Android and iOS

Best discovery, tipped by a ranger in Monteverde!

Merlin, from Cornell University, helps you identify and learn about birds. After you download the bird pack for your region, identification works offline with either a sound recording, a photo, or a few descriptive questions. Bird packs also include photos, sounds, and maps for all birds in your region.

I found Merlin much easier to use and useful than BirdNET, especially since it works offline.

Atelier Longue — Distance Sakabouf ★★★★★

69 g — 64€

Great little luxury item made in France by a serious hiker.

I could fit 10 days’ worth of kcal in the large version. The roll top closure with clip protects from bugs, rodents, and humidity. Off topic, Vegetasty by Samyang is the best vegan ramen I could find in Mexico and Costa Rica, but I’m not sure whether they are available in Europe.

Gaia GPS ★★★★★

$60/y for Android and iOS

After 1 year of heavy use, I’m still deeply in love with Gaia GPS.

With the paid version, you can download all kinds of offline maps, including the French and Spanish IGN topographical maps, satellite views, even phone coverage maps in the US. Everywhere else in the world the default map is from OpenStreetMap but made much more legible than on the nerve-racking OsmAnd. I’m really impressed by the usability of Gaia GPS and recent updates have brought great improvements without bloating the interface.

They increased the yearly subscription to $60, but I find it worth it. And you can use the same account on several devices, for example to share your plans with your friends. The gratis version is already quite useful, so try it out!

Garmin — InReach Mini 2 ★★★★☆

116 g — 300€ + 40€/y + 20€/m

Satellite safety devices are not so common in Europe, but I’m happy with my new Garmin InReach Mini 2 after using it for the first time in more scary places.

InReach devices require a paid satellite subscription to work. The cheapest for occasional use is to buy an annual Freedom Plan (40€/y) and then buy monthly Freedom Safety Plans (20€/m) when you need it. I found it a bit hard to understand what was included, but in the end the Freedom Safety Plan was enough:

  • You can only send or receive 10 custom text messages, so I kept them for emergency situations.
  • You can send as many “check-in” messages as you want. Garmin predefines 3 “check-in” message templates: “starting route”, “ending route”, and “doing fine”. You predefine a group of recipients for these messages before your trip. Everybody in this group receives an SMS with a link to your location (but not your GPS track) when you sent a check-in message.
  • You can optionally sharing your tracking on a map that has a fixed URL on MapShare. With the cheapest Freedom Safety Plan, tracking cost another 0.10€ extra per tracking point (charged at the end of the month). You can configure your InReach device to send tracking points every 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, etc.

I’m only giving 4 stars because it’s pretty expensive overall and the pricing scheme feels a bit exploitative.

Katadyn — BeFree ★★★☆☆

83 g — 60€

I still love the concept of the BeFree, but I have doubts about it’s reliability, though I found workarounds.

That’s my second BeFree after the first one developed a pin hole leak and got clogged with a super slow flow rate. After only 20 days of use, this second one also had a very poor flow rate (several minutes of hard squeezing per liter).

After reading that this is a common problem, I could revive it on the go with some lemon juice. Still, I’ll be more cautious in the future and will add a gram of citric acid and a couple of Micropur tablets to my emergency kit.

Salomon — XA Pro 3D V8 ★★☆☆☆

660 g/p — 100€

This was my first trip of more than 100 km with trail running shoes instead of traditional hiking boots. I’m happy with the feel of these very popular Salomon XA, but I’m very disappointed by their durability.

Their are half the weight of traditional leather boots, comfortable and the grip is good, even when walking fast, downhill, and over wet rocks. The fact that they dry very fast was great while crossing the Savegre, except that one of the OthoLite insole repeatedly moved and folded itself when wet.

But I was shocked to see that the mesh where the toe box bends was wearing out and already turned into a hole! I expect hiking shoes to last more than the 300 km that I’ve walked with these so far. Otherwise, it means changing shoes every 2 weeks on a thru-hike. I hope that the wear only comes from the bending of the mesh and not from abrasion, so that I’ll be able to use them some more without piercing my socks.