They live in the sea, are on the World Wildlife Fund’s “Endangered Species List”, and frequent the waters around Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast Tortuguero National Park. Their lives, though on similar paths, are a bit conflicted. I’m talking about sea turtles and manatees. One draws crowds of up to 50,000 tourists each year; the other...Read More
Christmas carols, traditional ballet, concerts, art tours and exhibits, and the magnificent annual Parade of Lights are all coming to town this holiday season in San José, Costa Rica. The vibrant capital city is looking very festive these days in preparation for Christmas, New Year’s, and the kick-off to the summer “fiesta” season for 2013....Read More
Any Olympic athlete or professional athlete, or high school or university athlete, or even a child on a sports team for that matter, has a coach. Actors have coaches. Singers and dancers have coaches or trainers. Over the past decades, executives and businesspersons have joined the ranks of seeking coaching for success. In today’s modern...Read More
Take a deep breath. Now imagine your lung capacity reduced by one-fifth. Find it a bit harder to breathe? What if that lessens? Now take your focus out to a global view, and you have a clear picture of what is happening in the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon is the largest contiguous tropical forest in...Read More
Do you like to work out in your hotel’s gym when you’re away? If you happen to be staying in Denmark’s Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, keeping fit while traveling will help generate the hotel’s electricity and earn you meal vouchers in their restaurant. The flagship eco-hotel is the first hotel in Denmark to generate all...Read More
Traveling with kids. For the seasoned traveler, it’s no big deal, they say. A bit more luggage and stuff to carry. For first-timers they tend to fall into two camps – optimistic or terrified. My sister is probably the most efficient family traveler I know. She has her work cut out for her with 2-year-old...Read More
Dreamy, breezy, sun soaked days. Should I lie in the sun on my terracotta tiled terrace, or splash about in my private pool? Or maybe I’ll go for a swim in the sea in an azure blue cove edging a blindingly white sand beach. Later, I’ll take a siesta on my cushy white sofa, terrace...Read More
One of the most amazing things I’ve learned how to do is scuba dive. It’s the closest thing to flying I’ve ever felt, and given my fear of heights (or, rather, falling from them), it feels a whole lot safer. When you get your buoyancy worked out right, being weightless under water, drifting here and...Read More
The neat thing about river rafting is that you get to see parts of the country that otherwise go unnoticed. The Peñas Blancas River in north central Costa Rica is a good example. The clear tropical river runs through the Tilaran Mountain Range, fed by pristine waters of the Monteverde cloud forest, and converges with...Read More
It’s been a good year so far for Nataly Bernold. The 19-year-old from Jaco Beach, Costa Rica, was just crowned Costa Rica’s National Surfing Champion in the Women’s division in August (2012), making it her third national surfing title. In May, she won the Quicksilver Cup on the Olympus National Surfing Circuit in Dominical, placing...Read More
A friend of mine is a consummate travel fanatic. She’s traveled all over the world and knows the ins and outs of internet travel websites like nobody’s business. Nevertheless, she still uses a local travel agent whenever she plans her family’s holidays. Going to Ecuador? She contacts a travel expert in Ecuador. Going to the...Read More
Starting this weekend the port city of Limón kicks off its annual Carnival festivities, a 12-day Caribbean street party celebrating the kaleidoscope of cultures on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. The famous party commemorates Christopher Columbus’ historic arrival to Costa Rica’s coconut-fringed Caribbean coast in 1502. Visitors will come from all over for the 2012 “Carnaval...Read More
Tortuguero is like the imaginary jungle coast in Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” It is a wild place. You can just imagine what was going through Christopher Columbus’ mind when he anchored off the palm-fringed beach in 1502 … “I have come to the end of the earth,” he must have mused. The...Read More
While the rest of the northern surfing world is gearing up for snowboarding for the winter, Costa Rica is heating up for the 2012-2013 summer season. Sunny days, blue skies and dry trade winds are soon headed our way … ideal for surf vacations! Look your best and get the most stoke with the latest...Read More
I want to be part of a Blue Zone. What is a “Blue Zone,” you ask? It is a place where people live happily and healthily for a very long time. The term was popularized by author-educator-explorer Dan Buettner in his 2008 book, “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from People Who’ve Lived the...Read More
Ecotourism and Costa Rica are practically synonymous, especially since Costa Rica essentially pioneered the flourishing ecotourism trend. In April of this year, Costa Rica was named the most popular eco-friendly destination in the world by TripAdvisor members. The country has been on the forefront of the eco-friendly travel movement ever since it developed its Certification...Read More
Tourism all over the world is on the upswing. World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) statistics show that the number of international tourists around the world grew nearly 5% during the first six months of 2012, as compared to the same period in 2011. Despite lingering worries over the global economy, international tourism is bouncing back. A...Read More
The buzz is true – Costa Rica is a surfer’s paradise. There are hundreds and hundreds of beach towns, from little villages to bustling cosmopolitan centers, and just as many surf breaks. The country counts more than 700 miles of coastline between both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. With warm tropical water, long rolling waves,...Read More
Most tourists to Costa Rica never see San Jose. They are whisked off from the Juan Santamaria International Airport outside the city to the “pretty” sights of the country; or they fly into the northern Guanacaste international airport at Liberia and don’t go anywhere near the Central Valley. That’s too bad. San Jose has a...Read More
It is a gigantic journey. A one-way trip can last upwards of 5,000 miles. Imagine walking from a bit north of Anchorage, Alaska, all the way to San Jose, Costa Rica, and that’s the distance we’re talking about. Or, think of swimming from Antarctica to Costa Rica. Now imagine not resting nearly at all, and...Read More
Earthquakes in Costa Rica, like the rest of the Americas and Asia along the “Ring of Fire,” happen all the time. Of course, most usually aren’t as strong as yesterday’s 7.6-magnitude earthquake that occurred at 8:42 a.m. along the Pacific Coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. The quake’s epicenter was 6.3 kilometers (almost four miles) south...Read More
The year was 1998. There was a very small flow of visitors coming to Costa Rica, about 100,000 according to the official numbers. A decade later, that number has increased up to 2 million tourists per year. This $1.9 billion industry is mainly based on Eco-tourism and has been driven by the green buzzword. As...Read More
Think about the best holiday destination. Have you considered Costa Rica? Have you ever wondered why it is one of the most popular choices by travelers? Looking at vacation reviews is a pretty good place to start for choosing a holiday destination. That is the way most travelers have found first-hand information about this place....Read More
The Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica counts many superb sights and attractions. You have the canals and sea turtle nesting beaches of the Tortuguero National Park, the marvelous beaches of Cahuita and Puerto Viejo, the Afro-Caribbean port town of Limon, the wild beauty of the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife and Marine Refuge, and the impressive Talamanca Mountains,...Read More
