Costa Rica is a narrow strip of Central America celebrated for its extraordinary natural landscapes. Wedged between the North Atlantic and the Pacific, the country has coastlines on both sides and a lush, dense jungle across its interior.
Beyond its mainland shores, Costa Rica also lays claim to more than a hundred islands, scattered along both coasts, though most lie in the Pacific. They enrich the country’s already remarkable biodiversity and have become destinations in their own right.
Among the most visited are Isla Tortuga and Isla del Caño, both well known along the Pacific coast.
But there is another island, far more remote, sitting deep in the North Pacific swells, that has earned a fame all its own. Isla del Coco—today a protected natural park surrounded by crystalline waters prized by divers—has a reputation that extends well beyond its natural beauty.
For much of the 20th century, the island drew a very different kind of visitor: those who believed it was the real Treasure Island, the one Robert Louis Stevenson had in mind when he wrote his immortal novel about pirates and buried gold.
A Work of Fiction Built on Many Real Things
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, part of that remarkable generation of Scottish writers who, in the final decades of the 19th century, completely transformed the genres of adventure and historical fiction.
Alongside Walter Scott, Stevenson helped lay the foundations of modern adventure literature. His most celebrated work—no disrespect to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—was Treasure Island, arguably the definitive pirate novel and one of the most influential works of its era.
Stevenson developed the book in close collaboration with his 12-year-old stepson, Lloyd Osbourne. The boy’s contribution proved decisive: it was Osbourne who sketched the first rough map of Skeleton Island, the fictional place where a band of charismatic pirates had buried the greatest treasure anyone could imagine. That drawing sparked something in Stevenson’s imagination.
The novelist wrote chapter by chapter, sharing each installment with his stepson, who contributed ideas to the plot and even suggested names for some of the characters.
Stevenson was no stranger to the world of pirates. In Britain, these figures had inspired equal parts terror and fascination barely a century earlier. He drew on some of the most enduring pirate legends—including that of Blackbeard—to lend the story texture and credibility.
As for the real Treasure Island: in Stevenson’s day, countless legends already circulated about chests of gold buried somewhere in the remote Caribbean. Stevenson also drew on stories from Samoa and the Virgin Islands, gathered from an old uncle who had spent years at sea. The Scottish islands themselves shaped the geography of his fictional terrain.
But what if a real treasure island actually existed? What if somewhere, buried beneath sand and stone, lay a genuine pirate’s hoard—thousands of gold coins and precious gems? That place might well be Isla del Coco.
Isla del Coco: Diving, Natural Beauty, and the World’s Most Sought-After Treasure
Isla del Coco is a singular place, rising from the Pacific roughly 370 miles southwest of Costa Rica’s mainland. Small, densely vegetated, and largely untouched, it is today a protected national park administered by the Costa Rican government.
The island can be visited on guided excursions and is especially prized among divers and underwater photographers.
Its modest size makes it possible to explore in just a few hours, moving between its lush interior and pristine beaches. Those beaches, according to legend, may conceal some of the greatest treasures ever lost.
Isla del Coco appears repeatedly in stories about lost treasures, most notably the fabled Treasure of Lima—one of the largest ever recorded.
The story goes like this: facing an imminent attack, the Spanish viceroy in Peru ordered his most valuable possessions loaded onto a ship and entrusted to an English captain named Thompson. Greed proved stronger than loyalty. Thompson and his crew killed the Spanish aboard, seized the vessel, and turned pirate.
Pursued by a Spanish warship, they managed to reach this small Costa Rican island and bury the enormous treasure—multiple chests packed with gold and diamonds—before they were captured.
The treasure is said to remain on the island to this day. More than 500 expeditions have been mounted over the past century in search of it. None has succeeded.
Isla del Coco is never named directly in Stevenson’s novel, but many scholars and enthusiasts believe the Scottish writer had almost certainly heard the story and drawn on it for his fiction.
The island is also said to hold other treasures concealed in its underground caverns, left behind by other English pirates who found it and saw it as the perfect place to hide their plunder.
Some estimates have placed the total value of the riches hidden on Isla del Coco at more than $1 billion.
Real treasure or enduring legend? For now, the mystery stays buried.
