Blog category

Small Costa Rica hotels band together

In 2005 a group of twenty-two small to mid-sized hotels from many Costa Rican tourist destinations banded together to take on the system. Looking for intelligent options to fill their rooms, and tired of waiting for guests to miraculously arrive at their hotel when counting on travel agents and the big internet boys (expedia, travelocity, orbitz and hotels.com), the hotel group started off on the simple premise of working as a team by sending guests to each other, and offering the guests a 10% discount as incentive. When guests are leaving for another part of Costa Rica, members wou...

Ticology

Climbing Mount Chirripo

Written by Tyler and Ali Weeks, previous guests of Adventure Inn

Hiking Mount Chirripo is, for many, a challenge, adventure, and calling, all in one. The highest of all mountains in Central America, its top is accessible to anyone with the persistence to press on, step by step, and requires no technical gear when seeking the summit. What is required is mental perserverance, and an ability to conquer from within the outdoor challenges of slope and variable weather patterns. For those enduring enough to press through the many offerings Mother Nature makes along the way (blaring heat and heavy hu...

Things you should know about Costa Rica

Much has been written about Costa Rica in the travel guides and on the internet. After fourteen years of working in the tourist business, and owning two Costa Rica hotels, and advising literally thousands of people about what Costa Rica has to offer, let me summarize and clarify a few things I know.

Some twenty seven percent of Costa Rica is designated as national parkland. In the USA, Canada and elsewhere, you enter the park, check in at the ranger station, drive on wonderfully signed roads, take guided hikes along designated paths, use the washrooms, camp grounds, souvenir shops, ...

The Future of Global Tourism

The global financial disaster seems to have been created by individuals with too much unregulated power manipulating the American financial markets. As the world economy adjusts and evolves in response to it, it only makes sense that some locations on the planet will weather the storm better than others.

Ground Zero, the United States of America, faces severe uphill battles to maintain its global dominance; the difference in global wages, the lack of cheap energy sources and a mistrusting Muslim world in charge of the lion's share of oil, talk by some major world powers to drop the ...

Costa Rica Tops Latin America in recent Prosperity Study

The Legatum Prosperity Index, http://www.prosperity.com, the planet's only assessment of well being and wealth, has placed Costa as the leader of all Latin American countries

Unlike other studies that rank countries by their actual levels of development and wealth, the Prosperity Index rates countries based on those factors that enhance economic growth and develop happier citizens over the long run, the real cornerstones of prosperity, and prosperity equals security.

Little Costa Rica bi-passed stronger Latin American economic forces such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Panam...

God or Ticos...who should take credit for Costa Rica?

Recent articles in various news sources say that Costa Rica is ranked by the Economist as the 8th most stable country on the planet, it is rated the 5th cleanest place in the world by the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at Yale, and it is the first country ever to be designated a 'BioGem' according to the Natural Resource Defense Counsel.

Now the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organization representing thirty of the world's most advanced countries has revealed a picture of the relative wealth and progress of nations. It places C...

Eric's first lodge

One of the funniest stories I have of being in the hotel business was in our first little country inn in northern Ontario in the late 1970s. My young wife Elaine and I were managing our hearts out, taking advantage of an opportunity to run a little lodge, cooking three meals a day, checking people in, taking snowmobile safaris out, doing all the maintenance, and laundry, and the dishes, even chambermaiding, it was fun meeting all the guests first hand, and partying with them, and we were young with lots of energy.

Elaine, out of necessity, volunteered to be the lunch and dinner cook...

Costa Rica and the Global Recession

I sold my third accommodation property in northern Ontario in 1995 and the world was now my oyster.I had grown tired of the slagging Canadian economy, I was also tired of the frigid Canadian weather and ladies. My ex-wife's new boyfriend wanted to kill everyone (but I was at the top of his list). I had a degree in environmental studies, and had studied at a masters level in Third World Ecotourism marketing. A judge made a benchmark decision in my favor and allowed my two sons, ages 14 and 12 to reside with me, and even more incredible, to take up residence in another country. After reading the...

Costa Rica jolted by major earthquake

Costa Rica earthquake, January 8, 2009, Central Valley, Poas Volcano tours cancelled, evacuation, La Paz waterfall gardens, death toll 15, Adventure Inn mainly unaffected