International Living’s Bigger Better World delves into the stories behind the story. This week, we take you to the Pacific coast of northern Costa Rica with Senior Editors Suzan Haskins and Dan Prescher.
Suzan’s two-page round-up of their recent scouting trip to the lesser-visited shores of northern Guanacaste province appears in the November 2022 issue of International Living magazine: “Miles and miles and miles of the bluest-blue ocean, a smattering of small verdant islands off in the distance, beyond them the Santa Elena Peninsula and even farther, a hazy Nicaragua.”
Retracing the steps of their honeymoon some 17 years earlier, Dan and Suzan revisited Costa Rica with a wealth of international experience under their belts. Having lived overseas in Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama already, Costa Rica is the missing jigsaw piece in their expat life. Though they spent their time exploring, relaxing, and enjoying the jumping-fresh seafood…there’s no doubt that the couple were also scouting potential destinations for their own overseas retirement.
Costa Rica has been on the expat relocation radar for decades. It’s one of the most welcoming places on the planet, with a laidback atmosphere, low cost of living, stable government with excellent services…and unspoiled landscapes ranging from highland lakeside valleys to untracked rainforest to wild ocean coastlines. It’s also a hotspot for exotic wildlife—including a troop of friendly howler monkeys who made an appearance one warm evening “They joined us for happy hour,” as Suzan puts it.
Join Suzan and Dan as they talk through the details of what makes this hidden corner of Costa Rica so special, and why, as Dan puts it, ‘Within 20 minutes we were already breathing slower.'
If you haven’t become a member yet—you can do it today with a special discount offer for podcast listeners. You’ll receive our monthly magazine plus a bundle of special extras. Subscribe here: https://intliving.com/podcast.
Music: Royalty Free Music From timtaj.com.
International Living’s Bigger Better World delves into the stories behind the story. This week, we take you to the Pacific coast of northern Costa Rica with Senior Editors Suzan Haskins and Dan Prescher.
Suzan’s two-page round-up of their recent scouting trip to the lesser-visited shores of northern Guanacaste province appears in the November 2022 issue of International Living magazine: “Miles and miles and miles of the bluest-blue ocean, a smattering of small verdant islands off in the distance, beyond them the Santa Elena Peninsula and even farther, a hazy Nicaragua.”
Retracing the steps of their honeymoon some 17 years earlier, Dan and Suzan revisited Costa Rica with a wealth of international experience under their belts. Having lived overseas in Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama already, Costa Rica is the missing jigsaw piece in their expat life. Though they spent their time exploring, relaxing, and enjoying the jumping-fresh seafood…there’s no doubt that the couple were also scouting potential destinations for their own overseas retirement.
Costa Rica has been on the expat relocation radar for decades. It’s one of the most welcoming places on the planet, with a laidback atmosphere, low cost of living, stable government with excellent services…and unspoiled landscapes ranging from highland lakeside valleys to untracked rainforest to wild ocean coastlines. It’s also a hotspot for exotic wildlife—including a troop of friendly howler monkeys who made an appearance one warm evening “They joined us for happy hour,” as Suzan puts it.
Join Suzan and Dan as they talk through the details of what makes this hidden corner of Costa Rica so special, and why, as Dan puts it, ‘Within 20 minutes we were already breathing slower.'
If you haven’t become a member yet—you can do it today with a special discount offer for podcast listeners. You’ll receive our monthly magazine plus a bundle of special extras. Subscribe here: https://intliving.com/podcast.
Music: Royalty Free Music From timtaj.com.
[00:00:04.460] - Jim Santos
Greetings, everybody, and welcome to Dan and Suzan. Thanks for joining us here today on A bigger, Better World. Hi there, Suzan. In the November 22 issue, we had an article in there about Costa Rica's Gold Coast. It struck me as it wasn't your typical ‘live in a foreign country because XYZ’ kind of article. It was more just about kicking back and enjoying the moment.
[00:00:27.710] - Suzan Haskins
Right.
[00:00:28.940] - Dan Prescher
Which is exactly what we did.
[00:00:31.410] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah.
[00:00:31.750] - Jim Santos
I also noticed in there well, for instance, in France, I noticed the word ‘d’Accord’. You're taught in school that means ‘okay’, but the way they use it in France, it can mean ‘Okay. Yeah, right. You're full of it’. It all depends on kind of the inflection. And it seems like you have the same kind of thing in Costa Rica. Pura Vida.
[00:00:53.330] - Suzan Haskins
Right. Pura Vida is used to say, hello, goodbye, how are you? So long, who cares? Everything's going to be okay. It's just that catchall phrase that Costa Rica is known for. It's kind of a way of life, I guess. It actually means pure life or relax and enjoy life. And that actually sort of defines what Costa Rica is all about, I think.
[00:01:29.160] - Jim Santos
I noticed Costa Rica is kind of unusual in that they disbanded their military after the Second World War and their gross domestic product, I think, is like 50% more devoted toward education than the global average.
[00:01:45.940] - Dan Prescher
Yes. Have to do something with all that money to save on your military, I guess.
[00:01:50.460] - Jim Santos
I guess so. It would be interesting, if we tried something like that. You mentioned in the article, flying in there on a small plane. Is this an area that's difficult to get to?
[00:02:03.810] - Suzan Haskins
No, it's not. Costa Rica is a small country, but there are mountains and winding roads and all of that. But this area is fairly easy to get to. It's right off the Pan American Highway. But for us, we were coming from San José, where we had spent a few days beforehand.
[00:02:26.590] - Dan Prescher
Yeah, it was a domestic flight and the domestic airport is right across the highway from the international airport and it flies right to the other international airport in Liberia. So it was pretty darn convenient.
[00:02:40.390] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah, it's a 50 minutes flight from San José, and I suspect we've driven it before. I think it takes maybe 4 hours. So for us it was really convenient. I think the cost of the flight was maybe $115. So it saved us some time in that airport at Liberia. I was very impressed.
[00:03:04.490] - Dan Prescher
Yeah, the Liberia airport is impressive.
[00:03:07.560] - Jim Santos
And you say that is an international airport?
[00:03:10.100] - Suzan Haskins
Yes. You can fly directly there from the States. In fact, when we left, we flew out of the Liberia airport directly to Houston. We were flying on United, but I think all the major airlines fly into Liberia.
[00:03:26.610] - Dan Prescher
It makes that section of the coast really convenient because we rented a car. The rental company was five minutes away from the airport and then a half-hour drive to the coast, and we were there.
[00:03:40.970] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. So it's very accessible and easy to get to that way.
[00:03:46.160] - Jim Santos
Now, I know you guys have lived well. When I met you, you were living in Ecuador. I know you've lived in Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua. And you frequent Costa Rica. I just heard recently also, that it might be for a special reason. I understand you two got married there.
[00:04:01.790] - Suzan Haskins
We did.
[00:04:02.720] - Dan Prescher
We've been lurking around Costa Rica for a long time.
[00:04:05.240] - Suzan Haskins
Yes, we got married in San José.
[00:04:07.030] - Dan Prescher
In 1997, Vienteciete de Abril.
[00:04:12.170] - Suzan Haskins
A town called de Abril not too far from where we're on this last trip. And we had a great time on our marriage honeymoon trip.
[00:04:28.930] - Dan Prescher
Yeah. It was the first time that I had intentionally gotten lost. This is something that Suzan keeps trying to teach me, and I resist with every fiber of my German heritage, but she just likes to get in an SUV and get lost.
[00:04:45.580] - Suzan Haskins
I like to rent a car and just drive and not know where we will spend the night. And it worked out fabulously.
[00:04:54.820] - Dan Prescher
That's pretty much what we did on our honeymoon, and it worked out really great. And that's why we've… I mean, thank goodness International Living has a conference in Costa Rica every chance we get, because we get to go back every year, and we still wonder why we haven't lived there yet, and I don't know. Might have to do something about that.
[00:05:16.360] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. For expats, I would say Costa Rica is, in my mind, it's probably the easiest place in Latin America to just settle into expat life because it's very easy to get around, easy to shop. Things feel familiar there.
[00:05:38.910] - Dan Prescher
And there's the fact that everybody is relatively well educated. There is no military to worry about, and it's an environmental. They take their environmental sensibilities very seriously.
[00:05:56.540] - Jim Santos
Yeah. I read that they had a big reforestation program going on, and of course, their drive toward sustainable energy.
[00:06:03.490] - Dan Prescher
And renewable energy, very nearly carbon neutral.
[00:06:07.710] - Jim Santos
Yeah. I actually was shocked. I had to look up another source to make sure it was correct, that they have a 97% literacy rate. So that is an extremely well educated country.
[00:06:19.410] - Suzan Haskins
And you're going to find a lot of English speakers, especially among younger Costa Ricans. They teach English in their schools. So everybody learns English. And also you can use the dollar along with the Colón there. So it's really not a difficult place to travel or settle down.
[00:06:41.500] - Jim Santos
You mentioned San José. How is that? As a major city, it's only about a third of a million people, but has about 2 million in the surrounding area, which actually is about half the population of the country.
[00:06:53.750] - Suzan Haskins
Right. It's a very spread out capital city, so it feels bigger. I would suggest you have GPS and use it when you're driving in San José.
[00:07:08.460] - Jim Santos
No getting lost on that.
[00:07:09.680] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. It's not like in a grid like we're kind of used to in the States.
[00:07:15.060] - Dan Prescher
All the times that we've been to Costa Rica and flown into the airport and gone to the places where our conferences have been, I don't know that we've ever taken the same route twice with any particular driver. Everybody who knows the city and knows that has their own little routes and their own little tricks to get around. And many times the roads that you're used to can be closed for whatever reason. The time of day makes a difference because traffic really clogs up in some areas. So it's a town where you'd like to have an experienced guide driving or GPS.
[00:07:52.550] - Suzan Haskins
We've rented a car many times in San José, and that first trip back in 1997 when we got married, there was no such thing as GPS, or smartphones, for that matter. And I remember it being a little white-knuckled driving because we didn't know where we were going or where we were. And we were following those things called maps, foldable printed maps. Remember those?
[00:08:21.010] - Jim Santos
I remember printing out MapQuest. Print out.
[00:08:24.520] - Suzan Haskins
Some things are just so much easier now.
[00:08:27.250] - Jim Santos
Yeah, it sounds like this is really an R and R trip for you.
[00:08:31.780] - Suzan Haskins
This was, yeah.
[00:08:33.400] - Jim Santos
Twelve or 13th honeymoon, something like that.
[00:08:36.960] - Dan Prescher
Yeah. We had planned it to decompress because we know that every time we get to Costa Rica, we relax. That kind of place. Pura vida, and man, when we got to this section of the coast and got into the condo that we were staying in, the effect was immediate. I mean, it didn't take 20 minutes for us to just start breathing slower.
[00:09:03.160] - Suzan Haskins
Right. The view from the condo was, as I wrote in that article, extraordinary. I mean, it really sort of made your racing heart slow down and made you just kind of breathe a sigh of relief and want to climb into that hammock and not get out and just look at that gorgeous view.
[00:09:21.650] - Dan Prescher
It's a real tangible effect, at least for us. Yeah.
[00:09:26.120] - Jim Santos
Speaking of that, looking at the article, you guys weren't exactly staying in thatched huts.
[00:09:30.590] - Suzan Haskins
No, we are not.
[00:09:32.760] - Jim Santos
I seem to recall something about a saltwater infinity pool.
[00:09:36.660] - Suzan Haskins
My gosh, it was beautiful. I think there were, let's see, maybe 12, 13 condos in the condo unit that we stayed in. We had our own infinity pool. There was really no one else there. I will say that we were there during rainy season, so it may have been a slower time of year, but to me that is the best time to go because the hillsides are lush and green. There aren't as many tourists. You can take things a little slower and get a little more attention from local tour providers, etc. And the rain really comes.
[00:10:23.760] - Dan Prescher
It comes when you're taking a nap.
[00:10:26.240] - Suzan Haskins
Or when you want to take a nap.
[00:10:27.590] - Dan Prescher
No problem.
[00:10:29.540] - Jim Santos
I wanted to ask about that because we mention you're there for RnR, but whenever I hear anything negative about Costa Rica, it's the other RnR, the roads and the rain.
[00:10:39.380] - Suzan Haskins
Well, the rains came in in the late afternoon, so we'd already been out and about. We were back in our condo with our bottle of wine, ready to watch the sunset. So it might have come late in the afternoon, a couple of days. And the other days that we were there, it came during the night while we were sleeping, so we really did not. I remember a few sprinkles when we would be out and about, driving about.
[00:11:06.880] - Dan Prescher
But several times it was out in the bay. We were overlooking the bay, and we could actually see across the Bay of Papagayo. Right. And the weather was out in the middle of it, miles away, just fun to watch. We weren't right on the beach. We weren't in the heart of the active tourist sector. We were up on the hill. We were about five minutes off the beach, which was perfect. Really quiet. But whenever we wanted something to eat or drink, we rolled down the hill and there we were on the beach.
[00:11:42.710] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. I will say that four wheel drive came in handy, not because the roads were muddy. They were not. But because the roads were steep getting up and down the hillside to our condo. But that made for some gorgeous views.
[00:11:56.930] - Jim Santos
Right. If you want that view, you got to get up on it.
[00:11:58.760] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah.
[00:12:00.360] - Dan Prescher
We actually tried to drive from the beach. We were on a peninsula down to Playa Flamingo, and the road dissuaded us.
[00:12:13.710] - Suzan Haskins
Okay. Remember when Dan said that I like to get lost? Well, we took the monkey route.
[00:12:19.150] - Dan Prescher
Yeah. It's actually called the Monkey Road.
[00:12:21.730] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. Imagine you're coming, the Monkey Road is rutted, and you would like a four wheel drive on that, but you come around the corner and you are suddenly stopped by a stream rushing across the road in front of you. And of course, I wanted to go across it.
[00:12:43.250] - Dan Prescher
You have to make the decision whether to ford this stream or not in the vehicle that you happen to be in. And Suzan voted yes, and I voted no.
[00:12:55.940] - Jim Santos
Hey, it's a rental.
[00:12:56.930] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah.
[00:12:59.840] - Jim Santos
I know. We've gone from the airport in Quito into downtown Quito before and what a cab driver called the Conquistador Run and sounds very much like your Monkey Road. It looked like it had been built by the Conquistadores. No maintenance since then.
[00:13:15.110] - Suzan Haskins
Oh, I think I've been on that road, Jim. In Quito? Yeah. I love roads like that. Dan, not so much. Well, we had no drop offs. There's jungle next to you, and of course, the Monkey Road. There are monkeys that you can see.
[00:13:34.000] - Dan Prescher
I didn't want to chance it. We probably should have, but we would...
[00:13:42.850] - Suzan Haskins
Have been out there by ourselves until somebody came along and pulled us out.
[00:13:46.430] - Dan Prescher
We still be there…
[00:13:47.860] - Suzan Haskins
Floating down the stream.
[00:13:49.790] - Jim Santos
That reminds me, is there a decent cellphone coverage out there?
[00:13:53.170] - Dan Prescher
I don't know that we actually called anybody.
[00:13:57.290] - Suzan Haskins
There was. I texted with some people and I WhatsApped some people. You know, WhatsApp I will say is the de rigeur app that you must have on your phone when you're traveling, because every tour guide, every rental manager, every restaurant can be contacted via WhatsApp. So I do know we were WhatsApping people.
[00:14:19.720] - Dan Prescher
But and our Internet was fine in the condo. It never failed.
[00:14:24.650] - Suzan Haskins
Right.
[00:14:25.450] - Jim Santos
When I had surgery in Ecuador, I was surprised that my surgeon was using WhatsApp to arrange the operating room and the anaesthesiologist and all that. People, I think, are often surprised. They travel to some of these countries and they expect the cell service is going to be terrible. But because they didn't have an extensive infrastructure in wired lines, many of them were actually ahead of us in terms of the cellphone and cellphone coverage.
[00:14:50.410] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah, I agree with that.
[00:14:52.000] - Dan Prescher
I don't know how ours would have worked, but everybody else was on their phones all the time.
[00:14:57.640] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah, it's a phone world. Yeah.
[00:15:00.610] - Jim Santos
You mentioned the monkeys in your article, you mentioned the howler monkeys. Were they really cute, or did it become annoying after a while?
[00:15:11.920] - Suzan Haskins
No, they're really cute. I always thought of howler monkeys as great big scary things because they sound like the first time we experienced howler monkeys. We were in Belize, and I think we were staying in a thatched hut out in the jungle, and we heard these roars, and we thought they were jaguars. Of course, not knowing that jaguars are hard to come across in the wild these days. But then we later learned they were howler monkeys, and they have these sort of amazing, deep, loud roars, but they're really not much bigger than your standard sock monkey.
[00:15:55.560] - Dan Prescher
Suzan got up close and personal with a troop that was down by the entrance to the place that we were staying, and they just hung around. I mean, they were eating leaves and lollygagging around. They didn't mind Suzan much at all.
[00:16:11.140] - Suzan Haskins
I say they joined us for happy hour because they did. They were happy, we were happy. You can't be unhappy when you see a monkey, right? So it was a lot of fun.
[00:16:21.760] - Jim Santos
Well, that much wildlife and the kind of lush, verdant surroundings. Did you have any problems with bugs?
[00:16:28.340] - Dan Prescher
No, I don't remember, no problem at all.
[00:16:32.390] - Suzan Haskins
For being the rainy season, you would think there would be a lot of mosquitoes, but I don't recall that.
[00:16:42.590] - Dan Prescher
I think we were up high enough. We had the breeze, kept the bugs down. There were birds everywhere. We had some of the local blue jays on our take over our patio.
[00:16:55.340] - Suzan Haskins
A couple of afternoons, some iguanas. Not in the house, in the roadway. That's one of the things that I think is so remarkable about Costa Rica is that you will encounter monkeys, sloths, all kinds of animals. Just again, it's Costa Rica's commitment to ecology and the environment that allows it to be such a haven for wildlife. And the plants are gorgeous and…
[00:17:36.210] - Dan Prescher
Incredibly lush.
[00:17:37.450] - Suzan Haskins
One of the things we look forward to about going to Costa Rica is being out in nature.
[00:17:43.710] - Jim Santos
Do not they have a large part of their land set aside as preserves?
[00:17:47.600] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. I don't know what percentage it is, but I think Costa Rica is a country with one of the biggest percentage of nature preserves. So it's something it's great.
[00:18:01.560] - Jim Santos
To get back to the condo you're staying at for a moment. For someone who wants to come down and just unwind for a few weeks or a month or two, how affordable are the short and long term rentals?
[00:18:15.210] - Suzan Haskins
Well, I would say, first of all, it depends when you're going. If you're going during high tourism season, you'll pay more because there's more demand and less supply, of course. But I think we paid somewhere around $250 a night, and it might have been $275. But we had three bedrooms. I mean, it was it was gorgeous. It was far larger than we needed. We could have taken our whole family along with us and even had room to spare there. I think there were three bathrooms. Two. Three bedrooms. Three bathrooms, a huge terrace.
[00:18:59.690] - Dan Prescher
And those developments are everywhere in the hills back behind the beach, at least along this stretch of coast along the Papagayo Bay. So if you do your shopping and measure how far off the beach you want to be, how close to the beach you want to be, how close to town, how far away, you can get a good deal, or you can spend as much as you want. There are some fabulous places.
[00:19:25.430] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. The Four Seasons Resort is just a short distance south of where we were staying. And I know properties there are far more expensive, but we wanted to be in an upscale condo community where we could cook. We didn't want to stay in a hotel or resort all-inclusive or something like that.
[00:19:50.990] - Dan Prescher
And we have some clothes to wash. We wanted a washer and a dryer.
[00:19:54.550] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah, we're not those sort of all inclusive, resort type people, so this was perfect for us.
[00:20:02.240] - Dan Prescher
Neither are we backpacker hostel people anymore.
[00:20:04.970] - Suzan Haskins
No.
[00:20:07.190] - Jim Santos
Yeah, we've learned to travel light and do laundry.
[00:20:10.910] - Dan Prescher
Exactly.
[00:20:12.210] - Jim Santos
And that comfort is important.
[00:20:14.500] - Suzan Haskins
Absolutely.
[00:20:17.990] - Jim Santos
One of the things I noticed in your article, because for me, one of the best parts of travel or living or visiting another country is experiencing new foods, new cuisines, and even just new way of preparing food that you might even be used to. You mentioned a place called Father Rooster’s Bar and Grill.
[00:20:35.020] - Dan Prescher
Yeah, it's a great place. We made a habit of going down there because it was so close to where and the beach next to it was beautiful and they did great food. I'm the kind of guy that can eat local seven days a week. I'm a chicken and rice guy.
[00:20:57.610] - Suzan Haskins
But yes, the coconut shrimp and the calamari. Fresh seafood. Seafood right beside the ocean. And it was a really nice place. They had tables in the sand, little twinkly lights, a great jazz. The music wasn't overwhelming like you'll find in some beach bars. It was really relaxing and got you into the mood of Pura Vida.
[00:21:32.460] - Dan Prescher
It was obvious these guys knew who their clientele was. There were a lot of people like us there, kicking back, enjoying the beach. There were also entire families of locals who would show up and hang on the beach until they got hungry and thirsty and then come in for their dinner. So the place in the evening, it was packed all the time, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was no, we never had to wait in line, we never lacked for a table. But it's a popular joint and people really like to kick back and spend some time there, eating the food, watching the beach.
[00:22:09.650] - Suzan Haskins
It's the only restaurant on that Playa Ocotal. And that's another thing that's kind of remarkable about this area, is that there are lots of little individual beaches and each one has kind of a little distinct personality. And Playa Ocotal is very small and I would say exclusive in a way that there are not hordes of tourists. Father Rooster’s is the only restaurant there.
[00:22:46.260] - Dan Prescher
The main town is not far away, but it's just far enough away that our beach was very quiet. We were never in a crowd there.
[00:23:01.210] - Jim Santos
It's always nice when you see locals eating there, too. It's not going to be a decent place. Probably what I miss most about Ecuador is the fresh seafood and the restaurants like that.
[00:23:11.320] - Dan Prescher
Yeah. And this stretch of coast kind of reminded me of stretches of the Ecuador coast. There's a headland, there's a scallop of beach, there's another headland, there's another scallop of beach. And that just goes on and on and on. One day we just drove up to see how many of these little beaches we could get to before lunch and then hit a couple of them after lunch on the way back. And it's just little half moon bay after little half moon bay. They're all distinctive. They all have their own little characters.
[00:23:46.220] - Suzan Haskins
Some are larger than others.
[00:23:47.530] - Dan Prescher
Yeah, it's fascinating.
[00:23:49.940] - Jim Santos
I noticed, even though it's on the Pacific Coast there, all the pictures I've seen of the area does not seem to have the big crashing waves. You don't see people surfing or anything.
[00:23:59.990] - Suzan Haskins
Like that, not in this particular area. But drive 30 minutes to the south or 45 minutes to Tamarindo, and that's where you're going to find surfing beaches all along that Nosara peninsula. But the stretch where we were, I have to say, Jim, that's one of the things that I like most now that I'm older, I used to love I mean, I grew up in New Jersey, bodysurfing, all of that kind of stuff. Now I don't care if I see a wave, I like it nice and calm. And now that we have a grandchild, every place that we go, I think, could I take our granddaughter here and would she be safe? And that's what I love about these beaches, is that you don't have to worry about surf. Maybe there is undertow, but you have to go out quite a ways in order to get caught up in that. But it's just an easy place. That's why this part of Costa Rica, I think, is popular with families with small children. There's not the pounding nightlife that you're going to find further south either in a place like Tamarindo. And again, being older, that's not our thing anymore.
[00:25:15.290] - Dan Prescher
You can find it if you want. You just have to stay up late enough and we don't do that anymore.
[00:25:20.540] - Suzan Haskins
No, I mean, there's plenty of brew pubs and great restaurants in Coco Playa. And you'll find all that kind of stuff there, but it's not like Tamarindo or Samara or Nosara further south, which is more of that kind of surfer vibe.
[00:25:47.240] - Jim Santos
Since you've been to Costa Rica so often, so many different places, is there an area that's particular favorite of yours?
[00:25:55.260] - Dan Prescher
Oh, man.
[00:25:58.040] - Suzan Haskins
I always answer that question by saying it's like being asked if you have a favorite child. You always have one favorite at the moment, but not any particular favorite.
[00:26:10.640] - Jim Santos
Or you do, but you can't say it.
[00:26:12.080] - Suzan Haskins
Well, maybe. Yeah, maybe. But I have to say I really like the Arenal area. There's a Lake Arenal with the volcano at one end just makes for stunning vistas. And the volcano gives you these thermal waters, hot springs that you can soak in with this gorgeous view of the volcano. And again, I think we've seen the most wildlife in the part of Costa Rica.
[00:26:48.060] - Jim Santos
That's in the central part of the country.
[00:26:49.780] - Suzan Haskins
It's north central. It's about 3 hours north of San José, but from where we were in the Papagayo coast, it's only about an hour. So from that airport in Liberia, you can be in Lake Arenal in about an hour and 15 minutes. So if you were to live in the Lake Arenal area, Liberia probably would be your airport of choice.
[00:27:15.810] - Dan Prescher
That is what makes the area that we're talking about one of my favorite areas now. Because Liberia is easy to get into, doesn't take anything to get out of the airport and pass the town, and in half an hour you're on the beach. It doesn't get any more convenient than that.
[00:27:35.050] - Suzan Haskins
Right.
[00:27:35.510] - Dan Prescher
And once you get there, man, you're relaxing. I mean, you fly in, head on down, and in an hour you're eating chicken and rice and relaxing by the beach, and it's oh, shrimp and rice. Yeah. Suzan likes shrimp and rice.
[00:27:54.890] - Suzan Haskins
Dan's a Midwestern guy. He's beef and chicken, which you can have. But this area is really seafood.
[00:28:16.490] - Jim Santos
What would you suggest? If you're going to be there for a couple of months, where would you start? What's on your must-see and must-do list for Costa Rica?
[00:28:25.860] - Dan Prescher
The whole country.
[00:28:27.360] - Jim Santos
The whole country. You want to come and get an idea of what Costa Rica is like?
[00:28:30.890] - Suzan Haskins
Well, yeah, I guess I would go back to if you're going to be there for a month, there are so many places that you could stay for a month, or you could do as we did on our honeymoon and have done on consecutive trips to Costa Rica. Start in San José and rent a car and then go north to Arenal, then go west to this Papagayo Coast that we've been talking about, go down the Nicoya Peninsula to Nosara, Samara, et cetera. You can take a ferry from the Nosara Peninsula or sorry, Nicoya Peninsula, I guess it's called, back over to the mainland, and then keep going down the Pacific coast to Jaco and Manuel Antonio Park, which is the most well-known marine park in Costa Rica and absolutely stunning.
[00:29:29.310] - Dan Prescher
And then drive back up to the Pan American Highway and take that back into San José, drive right up the spine of the mountains over the pass of Death, the Sierra de la Muerte.
[00:29:40.240] - Suzan Haskins
Right. Cartago is a beautiful place. The Orosi Valley is a gorgeous place to look at. And the Caribbean coast, which is probably where we will go on our next trip to Costa Rica. That's one area that we've not explored, but are really looking forward to, now.
[00:30:01.300] - Dan Prescher
Now that we've talked about it, you could easily spend a month in a vehicle driving around Costa Rica. It's that kind of place. Way back in the day, there were places you couldn't get to. We couldn't get south of Dominical. When we were there on our honeymoon, the road was just too bad, that's all changing. There's a beautiful highway all the way to the peninsula, so you could easily drive the country for a month or two and see everything there was to see.
[00:30:34.790] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah. It's not a big country. And it's easy to go across the border into Panama or across the border into Nicaragua, which we've done. And so one of the things that I noticed they were offering from Papagayo where we were is day trips to Granada, Nicaragua, which would be awesome. There's a lot to do in this small area near that Liberia airport.
[00:31:01.880] - Dan Prescher
You can see Nicaragua from there.
[00:31:03.880] - Suzan Haskins
Yeah, from where we were, we could see across on a clear day, you can see across the Gulf to Nicaragua.
[00:31:09.130] - Jim Santos
And all three of these countries, North Americans can enter just with their passport.
[00:31:13.360] - Suzan Haskins
Right.
[00:31:13.780] - Dan Prescher
Correct.
[00:31:14.210] - Suzan Haskins
Very easy.
[00:31:15.440] - Jim Santos
No special visa required or anything like that?
[00:31:17.710] - Suzan Haskins
No.
[00:31:18.960] - Jim Santos
Is there anything that you guys wanted to bring up to talk about?
[00:31:22.340] - Suzan Haskins
I'll add one thing. If you were to live in this area or spend your winters there, Liberia has an excellent hospital. They have excellent shopping, major supermarkets, anything you would want. And you're only half an hour from Liberia, and of course, you're going to find medical facilities and shopping all up and down the coast. Where we were in the town of Coco, which was ten minutes from where we stayed, there was a beautiful big supermarket where we shopped a couple of days, smaller supermarkets, roadside stands full of produce, et cetera. So you're never going to go hungry. And just like I said, a really easy place to settle in. If you're looking for a place to spend your winters or to live full-time, this would be an area that I think we would both recommend and feel comfortable with. Yes.
[00:32:25.000] - Jim Santos
It sounds like a place where you can feel like you're completely isolated and it's tropical paradise, but you're not. But you're really only less than an hour away from anything that you might need.
[00:32:34.940] - Dan Prescher
You can be out in the bush if you want to, but there's nothing you can't get.
[00:32:39.740] - Jim Santos
Any final tips or tricks for anybody visiting Costa Rica for the first time.
[00:32:44.330] - Dan Prescher
Just say Pura Vida a lot.
[00:32:46.490] - Jim Santos
Learn that phrase and you'll do fine.
[00:32:47.990] - Suzan Haskins
Exactly.
[00:32:49.490] - Dan Prescher
You're halfway there. All right.
[00:32:52.210] - Jim Santos
Well, we've been talking to Suzan Haskins and Dan Prescher, senior editors at International Living. I'd like to thank you both for taking the time to talk with us today on a bigger and better world.
[00:33:02.050] - Suzan Haskins
You are welcome. We're happy to talk any time.
[00:33:04.210] - Dan Prescher
It's a pleasure.
[00:33:05.170] - Jim Santos
Hopefully we'll all get together sometime and a nice infinity salt water pool in Costa Rica.
[00:33:10.670] - Suzan Haskins
That would be awesome.
[00:33:11.450] - Dan Prescher
Looking forward to it, right?
[00:33:13.940] - Jim Santos
Thank you.