Costa Rica

Gen4 = large white pickup truck w/ a front antenna, often fully or partly visible

Panama: Visible truck → Costa Rica.

Ecuador: Front antenna → Costa Rica.

Plates short, white w/ blue text → light-blue tint through the blur

Lush tropical: rolling hills, agricultural lowlands, peaky volcanoes through the centre, dense rainforests dotted around

Less colonial than Panama: dark-red sheet-metal/plastic-tile roofs, pastel concrete walls, low or boxy 2-storey houses - heavily fenced & barred

Spanish official (Brazil = Portuguese)

Stop signs say 'ALTO'

Panama: Thin font → Costa Rica.

Mexico: Car meta decides.

Guatemala: White pickup → CR; grey roof-rack car → GT.

Red taxis are the standard

Panama: Red → CR; yellow → PA.

Long silver insulators on poles

Panama: Consistently long silver → CR.

Brazil: Portuguese → Brazil.

Ecuador: Long silver → CR.

Common poletop: even crossbar w/ uneven insulators (2-on-1), crossbar set lower than usual, usually with support bars; also single side-insulator at the very top; thin L-bent metal crossbars

Panama: Support bars → CR.

Colombia: Combine with taxis/signs.

Pole lamps w/ a blue dot on top (also PA/CO/BR)

Road signs often have a cross on the back (esp. diamond warnings)

Colombia: Grey posts → CR; white posts → CO.

'Bollard' = vertical orange board w/ 3 black circles

Electricity counters circular, often w/ a big metal box beside them (circular also in Mexico etc.)

Imperial beer ads w/ the black eagle mascot everywhere

Provinces appear on signs + have their own flags; area codes moderately useful

Pole-marking metas:

Landscape & crops:

Taxis carry yellow triangles w/ town name + province letter code; driftwood-branch fences → west; irrigation canals → south of Bagaces/Cañas; stilt houses → NE coast; folded-down car antenna → north/NE

San José: biggest urban area, valley w/ inclined roads, taller buildings; municipality-wide green street signs w/ white emblem rectangle - Calle/Avenida numbers increase outward from downtown

Road spotlights: few train tracks (GMA → Puntarenas west; via Turrialba → Siquirres/Limón east); only concrete highways = eastern RN 18 + divided RN 1 Liberia↔RN 18; RN 32 (RN 4→Limón) = divided through flat lush lowlands, w/ yellow centre bollards between toll & RN 4; yellow follow-car w/ 2 front windows → RN 2 east of Palmar Norte; wind turbines → Guanacaste clusters + SW of Cartago; bright-white soil roads → north of Liberia; night coverage → San Vito; tuk-tuks → Puerto Viejo de Talamanca (+ Nosara)

Rainbolt coverage: Rainbolt / film crew on a black Toyota around La Fortuna; his Gen4 trekker (brown hair, camera crew, stair trail → waterfall) SW of La Fortuna; another tropical-trail trekker (black-haired) in Mistico Park west of La Fortuna

Gen3 = trekkers only: around San José + NW coast beaches, Cocos Island (500 km offshore) + Caño Island boat. Pinpointable ones incl. Children's Museum (castle look), National Museum tower, orange bridge at Parque de la Paz, La Sabana/National Stadium, University of CR, Palacio de los Deportes (Heredia), airport walk, 3 dogs in pine forest (Bosque de la Hoja), Cartago museum/ruins/stadium, Punta Leona resort (Turkish-style red bricks), Liberia white building, Filadelfia L-shaped bricks