As tourism continues to grow in Costa Rica, more than ever, travelers are seeking to combine elements of adventure, culture, and active engagement for a meaningful adventure that goes beyond a typical vacation. Chill Expeditions, an Eco-tour company with nearly 20 years of experience operating in Costa Rica, seeks to connect visitors with engaging, meaningful experiences that leave them with an-in...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A long and comprehensive research study which has been conducted for nearly two decades confirms that sharks indeed return to the place they were born in order to give birth. The paper for this research was recently published by the Molecular Ecology scientific journal and has been acknowledged by members of Mision Tiburon (Shark Mission), a non-profit dedicated to th...

Now that the long-awaited iPhone 5 has finally reached Costa Rica, would-be shoppers are gasping and feeling the unpleasant effects of sticker shock if they choose to purchase the new Apple handset with cold, hard cash. Getting a new iPhone 5S with 16 GB of memory for less than $800 is nearly impossible, which is why wireless carriers such as Movistar are offering them for just $20, albeit with a ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons When the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) recently announced a major sweep that netted 361 arrests of known street gang members and collaborators, it was revealed some of those in custody are from Costa Rica and may have ties to Guanacaste. This is a grim reminder that although anti-gang efforts in Costa Rica have been effective, law enfo...

Source: Municipality of GarabitoThe municipality of the Garabito canton of Puntarenas is proud to announce that the Jaco Beach community will be the first in Costa Rica to build a Civic Center for Peace. This is part of a national project that the new Ministry of Peace coordinated with the administration of President Laura Chinchilla. The goal of these centers is to remind Ticos that peace is not...

The Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Liberia (LIR), province of Guanacaste, is quickly becoming the favorite landing spot for visitors from Canada, Mexico and the United States, particularly for those whose first visit to Costa Rica involved landing at Juan Santamaria International Airport in Alajuela (SJO) and getting to know the lovable capital city of San Jose. A closer look at the...

Source: The Costa Rica Star Facebook Beyonce Knowles and Shawn Corey Carter, better known as Beyonce and Jay-Z (or hip-hop music's ruling couple), were recently spotted in Costa Rica. Through official reports from the Directorate of Immigration we know that they landed at the Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Liberia (LIR). We also know that they arrived on a private jet for their ...

Officials from the Ministry of Public Health in Costa Rica have tallied the latest dengue (or breakbone) fever infections and have announced that the national vector-borne epidemic has finally come to an end. In the Guanacaste region, however, residents and tourists should continue to take precautions since they were the last to be affected by the epidemic. According to a news article published...

For those of you still shopping around for holiday presents in Costa Rica, consider the following: You can pay a visit to a local Banco Lafise branch and spend no more than 10,000 colones (about $20) on a pretty cool stuffed toy and attractive Christmas cards lovingly designed by children. What is more important, however, is that these gifts are helping narrow the digital divide in Costa Rica. ...

By order of President Laura Chinchilla, the flag of Costa Rica mournfully flew at half-mast on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in memory of the late Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa who bravely fought the forces of apartheid and dreamed of a truly free and peaceful nation. Did you know that the great Nobel Peace Laureate Mandela dedicated one of his first literary works to a Ti...

There’s a reason why they call it fishing, and not catching. Richard Krug, owner/founder of Americana Sportfishing, drove down to Golfito in the South Pacific earlier this week with three of his high-school buddies – Kip Ives, Dean Burriston and Billy Thresher. They flew to Costa Rica from La Jolla California to spend a couple of days offshore fishing with Captain Bobby McGuinness on his 37ft C...

Source: Facebook The battle over tipping and a livable minimum wage in the restaurant and hospitality industries of the United States has gone beyond that country’s borders and is now going global. The tipping conundrum involves many stakeholders: Servers, restaurant operators and the customers who support them. In Costa Rica, tipping is generally included in the bill; however, expat custom an...

The region of Costa Rica formerly known as the “forgotten province” is now being heavily courted by politicians and public officials. In less than 20 years, Guanacaste has gone from a mostly agricultural province to a region rich in nature conservation, lavish real estate developments, tourism, technology, and more. As a result, candidates to represent Guanacaste at the national Legislative Assemb...

For the past nine years, downtown Nicoya has been lit up during the month of December with the Festival of Light celebration. The main day of this year’s festival, Nicoya Shines 2013, will be on Saturday, December 7th. On that date, the program includes the presentation of 15 bands from Costa Rica and Panama to commemorate the 165th anniversary of the Canton of Nicoya, which was established as ...

When considering an international move thousands of “to dos” come to mind: selling belongings, packing, selecting an international moving company, setting up a mail service, creating an international banking system, reassessing credit cards, international business, and downloading apps that will assist his/her new life abroad. Well, maybe the latter doesn’t initially enter the mind of a new ex...

Only a few days after historians and leftist sympathizers observed the 60th anniversary of Ernesto “Che” Guevara's historical visit to Costa Rica, media reports of the formation of a new militia group training in the Caribbean prompted President Laura Chinchilla to explain that such informal militaristic actions do not fit into the country's long-standing unarmed and peaceful tradition. The Cos...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A recent study indicates that a wading bird's appetite for the hatchlings and freshly-laid eggs of sea turtles presents an interesting situation of interference competition in which nature conservation activists and local protectors of marine life in Costa Rica are choosing one wildlife species over another. The species in question are the beloved olive ridley sea tur...

The final draw of the 2014 FIFA World Cup to establish the first round of football matches has fans in Costa Rica worried about what teams their beloved La Sele will face. Everyone still remembers the ill-fated draw of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, when Costa Rica faced off against the host team right after the inauguration at the Allianz Stadium in Munich. Will the odds be any better this t...

If you were tuned in to ADN Radio 90.7 FM or Teletica Channel 7 in Costa Rica yesterday morning, you probably witnessed Mayor Luis Gerardo Castaneda of Liberia mention that the Disney conglomerate planned to develop a massive theme park in the 7,000 hectares of land located near the Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport (LIR). You may have seen the news on the websites of La Nacion, CRHoy.com...

David Garcia for Mision Tiburon Are you a certified scuba diver planning to be in Costa Rica in December? How would you like to be an active participant in a selachian tagging project to augment the marine conservation efforts of Mision Tiburon (Shark Mission), a non-profit organization that works hard to protect the elasmobranch resources of Costa Rica? This may be your chance to get very clo...

The holiday season in Costa Rica is usually brimful and awash with parades featuring elaborate displays of carrozas (floats), marching bands, carnival dance performances, live music, tasty (yet not very healthy) food, family activities, and -of course- lots of beer. This year, however, the Nicoya Brilla (Shines) Parade will be missing one key sponsor and participant: Cerveza Imperial. We are ju...

At a recent public hearing before Costa Rica's Constitutional Court, colloquially known as Sala IV, environmental activists and their legal representatives presented evidence to support their claims against RIU Hotels, a major international resort chain owned by a powerful Spanish consortium that includes Mexican and German investors. According to the plaintiffs, the RIU hotel at Matapalo Beach en...

An improvised rally in Jaco Beach that sent two young girls to the hospital after being struck by a sports car racing down a dirt road may have been organized under false pretenses. According to an investigative report by a daily tabloid newspaper in Costa Rica, a corrupt transit police officer may have issued falsified racing permits to naive rally organizers. In Costa Rica, Diario Extra is kn...

Source: Fuerza Publica Residents and visitors in the Caribbean communities of Costa Rica have gotten used to seeing the bilingual and courteous Tourism Police officers riding past on their high-performance bicycles and wearing their stylish white polo shirts, but in the past few weeks they have seen them dismount, spring to action and take down suspects. Marijuana Smuggling in Pococi On ...

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Laureate whose Grameen Bank has been hailed as one of the most brilliant and functional concepts of poverty reduction through microfinance, was recently in Costa Rica to inaugurate Nutrivida, an enterprise he hopes will be a ticket out of poverty for women in Guanacaste, Limon, Heredia, and San Jose. Some aspects of the Nutrivida business model, howe...

Jaco Beach, Costa Rica. December 3, 2013 – The first-ever resort lifestyle residential project to bring the standards of quality in Las Vegas to Costa Rica is only a year away from completion. A newly-released video report on the progress of Croc's Casino Resort in Jaco Beach features developer Rory Hascall explaining his vision in detail, and it also brings to mind the new opening date: Decem...

The ashes of one of Mexico's most cherished singers will be spread among the sand, ocean and pleasant breeze of Playas del Coco, province of Guanacaste. Isabel Vargas Lizano, better known as “The Voice of Mexico” or Chavela, passed away on August 5th, 2012. Part of her ashes have already been spread in the surf off Veracruz, a Mexican coastal town that Chavela loved as much as her native Costa Ric...

The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Awards for Excellence in Journalism are the most prestigious distinctions Latin American journalists can ever hope to receive. Costa Rica is truly blessed to have one of the highest levels of press freedom in the Americas, which makes the job of excellent journalists such as Giannina Segnini of national newspaper La Nacion a little easier. Ms. Segnini is not only the pro...

Former guerrilla leader Eden Pastora can't seem to catch a break. This man, who was once an iconic figure of the Cold War, is currently busy abiding by an order of the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) that directs him to repair environmental damage he caused to Calero Island in the northeastern tip of Costa Rica. While trying to fix the considerable mess he made, he is trying to...

Wage earners, self-employed professionals and businesspeople in Costa Rica who earn more than 752,000 colones (about $1,504) per month will be subject to withholding by the national revenue collection authority in 2014. Such is the Executive Decree issued by the Presidential Office in early October 2013. Workers who earn less than 752,000 colones per month in 2014 will be exempt from income tax ob...

Prior to the 1970s, paranormal activity in Costa Rica was mostly the stuff of folklore passed from generations dating back to the times when Conquistadors were busy claiming the newfound Americas for the Spanish Crown. Some scary tales actually originated before Columbus arrived; they were told by the indigenous people of Costa Rica, who in some way descended from the Mayas. When a former mental h...

When is a species really extinct? The recent rediscovery of a colorful frog in the southwestern region of Costa Rica and the potential return of sea turtle to nest in Guanacaste and other beaches along the Pacific coastline is calling attention to the methods of determining when a wildlife species has truly disappeared from our planet. Lazarus species is the term sometimes used to refer to a sp...

For businesspeople and entrepreneurs who operate in the potentially lucrative tourism industry of Costa Rica, getting the coveted Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) from the National Board of Tourism (Spanish initials: ICT) is like finding the Holy Grail in the midst of a forest property that the government has not yet turned into a national park. More than 20 years into the CST program, ...

The most widely accepted historical version of events related to the origin of Costa Rica's name involves gold; or, more precisely, an embellishment thereof. When Columbus discovered the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica during one of his whirlwind voyages of exploration in 1502, he wrote to the Spanish Crown that he had found a coast that was rich in both nature and lots of gold. More than five centu...

Now in its fourth year, the magic and wonder of previous incarnations of Envision Festival have driven anticipation for the transformational excursion on the beaches and in the jungles of Costa Rica each February. With a new location and a much higher profile for the annual blending of conscious music, visionary art, and spiritual enlightenment, this year's lineup has been the subject of much ...

Exercising in the hot sunny weather of Costa Rica presents a set of challenges one has to take into account. For those coming from cold climates, it takes about two weeks for your body to acclimatize and be able to maintain a lower inner temperature and heart rate, therefore reducing the risk of dehydration. After two weeks, you will start to sweat sooner and your sweat will be more diluted than b...

After hearing several people talk about a new kind of gym that "transforms your body," my editor asked me to take a TRX and Kettlebell class to write about my personal experience. Honestly, I felt a bit intimidated by the class because I am not used to that kind of exercise. I do yoga and I like to run but I'm used to an easier pace of exercise. I didn't know what to expect from the class - som...

The community of Nosara will come together next Saturday, November 30th to celebrate the 2013 Nosara Ecological Blue Flag Community Festival, with the objective of recognizing the environmental efforts of a diverse group of organizations and individuals from the area. Jessica Sheffield, one of the event’s five organizers, explained that for the occasion there will be at least 15 stands of organ...

US Embassy in Costa RicaThe warden program is a worldwide initiative of the U.S. State Department. It is administered by the American Citizens Services (ACS) team made up of foreign service officers and local staff who work in that section. If you are a citizen of the United States you will want to learn about this warden program and how it helps you to live a safer life in Costa Rica through sup...

Luis Roberto Hernández, ICE Information Department Director, showing the Internet speed serviceThe Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) launched a Fourth Generation (4G) network for processing data up to 10 MB on Monday, November 25th. However, the technology will be available in all provinces except for Guanacaste, which will get it next year. But why not Guanacaste from the start? The ...