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Travel and Tourism in Nicaragua
Travel alerts, currency, climate, transit, health, and safety information for visitors to Nicaragua.
Practical Information
Travel alert status, currency, climate, and transit details.
- Travel Alert Status
- Level 3: Reconsider Travel
- Time Difference
- UTC-6 (1 hour behind Washington, DC, during Standard Time)
- Currency
- gold cordoba (NIO)
- Climate
- Nicaragua’s climate varies with altitude and season. The summer, or dry season, from mid-November to mid-May, is hot and dry, with cooler nights. Winter, better described as the rainy season, from mid-May to mid-November, is hot and humid, with short, heavy tropical showers that may occur daily, often accompanied by violent electrical storms. Streams flood in the rainy season and dry up the rest of the year. The average daily high temperature in Managua ranges from 79°F to 93°F. Nights are usually temperate. Temperatures in the mountains can dip as low as 61°F, while the east coast high may be a humid 84°F.
- Ethnic Groups
- mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white) 69%, white 17%, black 9%, Amerindian 5%
- National Holiday
- Independence Day, 15 September (1821)
- Geographic Coordinates
- 13 00 N, 85 00 W
- Location
- Central America, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Pacific Ocean, between Costa Rica and Honduras
- Airports
- 176
Destinations
Regions and cities, top sights, national parks, UNESCO sites, and festivals for visitors.
Ometepe Island
To understand why Ometepe Island provokes the most lyrical descriptions in Nicaraguan travel writing, it helps to stand on the ferry deck as the island comes into view across the water. The two volcanoes, Concepcion to the north and Maderas to the south, rise from the surface of Lake Nicaragua with such clean symmetry that the island looks like an illustration from a mythology textbook. Concepcion, the active volcano at 1610 meters, is a near-perfect cone, perpetually capped with gases and occasionally with flowing lava. Maderas, at 1394 meters, is dormant and covered in dense cloud forest, its summit crater holding a small lake that can only be reached by a demanding hike through jungle and mud. The two volcanoes are connected by a narrow isthmus of lowland terrain that makes the island's shape recognizable from the air: a figure-eight, a double cone, an island that looks as though two mountains simply decided to share a piece of land.
Ometepe is reached most commonly by ferry from the port of San Jorge near the town of Rivas on the Pacific side of Nicaragua. The crossing takes approximately an hour to the main landing at Moyogalpa on the northern volcano, or longer to the smaller village of San Jose del Sur. A less frequent ferry service also connects from Granada in about four hours.
Health and Safety
Medical facilities, vaccinations, disease risk, and sanitation conditions.
Medical care is very limited, particularly outside of Managua. Basic and emergency medical services are available in Managua and in many of the smaller towns and villages. However, treatment for many serious medical problems is either unavailable or available only in Managua. Ambulance services, where available, provide transportation and basic first aid only. More advanced medical equipment, and some medications and treatments, are not available in Nicaragua.