Nobody moves to Costa Rica without a mental picture of a sloth outside the window. This page exists to adjust that picture gently before you sign a lease in Coco.
Where you’ll see it
Not here, or almost not. Costa Rica has two sloths, this one and the three-toed brown-throated sloth, and both want humid forest. The northern Guanacaste coast is tropical dry forest, brown and leafless for half the year, and sloths are scarce in it. People do report the occasional one toward the wetter hills inland, but a garden sloth in Playas del Coco would be news.
What to know
The good news is that the rest of the country is a short drive away and full of them. The Caribbean side, the southern Pacific, and Manuel Antonio are all reliable. So the honest version is this: you live on the coast with the monkeys, the motmots and the iguanas, and you drive to the sloths. Most people find that a fair trade once they have lived through a Caribbean rainy season.
