Costa Rica is a manageable destination for celiac travelers, with confirmed dedicated GF spots doing a lot of the heavy lifting — Posada Real Restaurante y Café in Liberia is fully gluten-free, the kind of anchor that makes a trip feel safe. Awareness thins out fast once you're away from a handful of vetted restaurants, though, and there's no comprehensive national allergen-labeling law to lean on, so plan around confirmed options rather than assuming casual menus will flag GF items. The naturally rice-, bean-, and corn-based backbone of Costa Rican cuisine — gallo pinto, plantains, corn tortillas — gives you a solid fallback even where formal labeling doesn't exist.
Country scores are not city averages. Costa Rica's 5/10 reflects national infrastructure — no comprehensive allergen-labeling law, awareness concentrated around a handful of confirmed restaurants rather than spread broadly — while Liberia's own 5/10 score happens to land at the same place because it's the only city visited so far. Expect other regions, especially outside Guanacaste's tourist corridor, to vary.