Building a home is a substantial investment, which is why it is very important to find a good home builder that will guarantee the final result will be exactly what you expected. If you bought land within a residential project, the developers usually already have a selected builder which is great considering that they have already done all the hard work of going over their profile, experience, ...

https://youtu.be/JGwWNGJdvx8 Ed Sheeran will be giving his first concert in Costa Rica this Tuesday, June 6 at the Coca-Cola Amphitheater in Parque Viva. The amphitheater will open doors at 5 p.m. Parking has a cost of 6,000 colones (around $10.5) for cars and 3,000 colones ($5.5 for motorcycles) and can be paid with cash, card or Compass token. There is also a VIP parking lot access for 11,...

Photo: Alvaro Cubero / Tiny Snowcap hummingbird If admiring the different species of birds is what you enjoy and whenever you travel you are hoping to capture with your camera lens the perfect photo of a colorful and unique bird, Costa Rica is certainly the place to visit with close to 10% of the species of birds in the planet. In the right places in Costa Rica a bird watcher can see up to ...

Costa Rica is a country that holds amazing and unique characteristics, here is a short list of some of these: 1. In Costa Rica you get 12 hours of day light year round, the sun comes out between 5 -6 a.m. and it goes down at 5-6 p.m. 2. It has a rock and sand formation that has the shape of a whale’s tail, located in the Pacific Coast where hundreds of humpback whales are seen every year. (Mar...

Keylor Navas makes Costa Rica proud once again, the goalkeeper who plays with Spanish team Real Madrid lifted for a second time the UEFA Champions League Cup when Real Madrid beat Italian football club Juventus with a score 1-4. Although the Real Madrid team had its ups and downs this season, they managed to beat a Juventus that up until today had quite a good run, having received only three go...

One of the most important aspects to consider when buying a vacation home in Costa Rica is tax payments. Ideally the details and information regarding tax payments for the property you are buying should be provided by the property developer or seller prior to the completion of the purchase; consulting a real estate attorney or tax expert is recommended in order to get a clear picture of the exa...

The Braulio Carrillo National Park is one of Costa Rica’s most vibrant rainforests, it is full of interesting wildlife living in the dense forest. Part of the Braulio Carrillo National Park is located in Heredia and part in San José, so as you might have guessed getting there doesn’t take too long, and it makes for a great one-day tour in Costa Rica. Most visitors access this park, named af...

(Image used as reference only) The Costa Rica Drug Institute (ICD in Spanish) will hold an auction to sell 21 luxury cars that belonged to to organized crime and were seized by the police. The expectation is to be able to raise 280 million colones (close to $490 thousand ),“The idea is that we can collect some funds for the ICD and at the same time we get rid of unused vehicles that are curren...

The Global Peace Index (GPI) 2017 published by the Institute for Economics and Peace found that the world became 0.28% more peaceful over the past year, even though over the last decade it has become considerably less peaceful. The GPI takes into consideration peace indicators such as the homicide rate, the impact of terrorism, armed services personnel in the population, relationship with neigh...

Once again the Poás Volcano interrupted its relative calm period and during the afternoon of this Friday, June 2, Poás Volcano presented a couple of small size eruptions which included an ash column. So far, this volcano´s activity had consisted mostly of phreatic eruptions, which means they contained mostly steam and vapor; however, the eruptions today as it was clearly captured by the cameras...

The cultural project “Your City, Your Canvas” (Tu Ciudad, Tu Lienzo) which this year chose the Casa del Parque Hostel in San José as the canvas to display urban art, has already selected ten proposals as the finalists for this project. “After an intense analysis process, and with the complexity of having to consider the criteria of all the different advisers of the visual arts project from the ...

The global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, dedicated to helping institutions in the private, public and social sectors achieve lasting success, announced the expansion of its operations to serve new businesses. The announcement was made today during the visit of Luis Guillermo Solís, President of Costa Rica to the firm’s center at Ultrapark II in Lagunilla, Heredia. The center provides global ...

(Photo Credit: Fernando Goldoni/Facebook) "Every thirty minutes in Costa Rica, someone arrives to one of the hospitals with a cardiovascular problem, and close to 1,500 Costa Ricans require an open heart surgery every year, although only close to 700 are able to get one", according to data provided by doctor Elliot Garita from the International Heart Foundation (Fundación Internacional del Corazó...

The month of May in Costa Rica closed with a surplus of rainfall, exceeding the predictions of the National Meteorology Institute, the number of lighting strikes doubled the number of 2016. In the past weeks the country has registered seven tropical waves which generated heavy rainfall and thunder storms that caused floods and landslides in different areas of the country. May registered a reco...

Investing in real estate in Costa Rica is a good idea as long as you are careful about picking the right property. As expected, many foreigners who choose to buy property in Costa Rica are looking to escape the harsh winter and the stress of their current life, and therefore look for places near the beach, a vacation or retirement home, but then of course, there are always some that moved to the c...

The National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) confirmed that the problems that Manuel Antonio National Park in Quepos was having with the sewage system have finally come to an end. “The problem with the sewage system was that the treatment plants installed back in 2007 had already run their useful life, the lack of maintenance also, caused the systems to stop working properly, some of them ...

Buying a house in a foreign country usually raises many questions, one of them has to do with your rights as a buyer and what warranty you get with your investment, after all, the last thing you need is to have an experience which should be exciting turn into a nightmare. Certainly, to avoid any problems with the purchase first you have to take some precautions, buyers tend to be impulsive and ...

Santa Teresa in Cóbano, Puntarenas, has quickly gained a reputation among foreigners for its laid-back environment, amazing beaches (which have excellent conditions for surfing), and its surrounding nature. This has, of course, attracted the attention of many that choose Santa Teresa as a vacation destination, but other many looking to make real estate investments in the area; after all, this i...

The Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) through an alliance with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and CNN International along with CNN Tourism Advertising Solutions and Knowledge (CNN TASK) have developed the new image that Costa Rica will use to promote itself as a tourism destination: “Costa Rica: My Choice, Naturally”. ¨Costa Rica: My Choice, Naturally is a campaign that appeals to the sens...

Finally, and after years of different technical studies, the Costa Rican Government received today the full report with 2,829 pages regarding the technical viability, financial aspects and pre-design of the construction of a new international airport in Orotina, Alajuela. In May of 2016 a $1.8 million contract with British engineering company Mott Macdonald was signed to conduct a technical and...

If you have already been living in Costa Rica for a certain amount of time and probably paying rent, it is likely that the idea of buying your own place has crossed your mind, or perhaps you don’t live here but you are interested in making an investment in the country acquiring a vacation home, and of course, one of the first questions that comes into mind is whether it is better to buy or build a...

Health is Wealth they say…and without a doubt health is indeed the most important thing a person can hope to have, yet it is probably also one of the things we usually take for granted; many times we don’t invest enough in our well-being, we think twice about paying that doctor’s appointment but we don’t hesitate on buying a new pair of shoes or spending the money on something we really like, we d...

Costa Rica’s National Surfing Team concluded its participation in the ISA World Surfing Games in Biarritz, France having only earned one bronze medal, which was won by Leilani McGonagle; however, the overall participation left the country in position 9 among the 47 participating countries. Costa Rica has managed to stay in the top 10 since 2004. The medal won by Leilani and the good participa...

For travelers looking to recharge their batteries with a quick getaway, a 48-hour Costa Rica itinerary that indulges in the best things a Pura Vida has to offer is just the ticket. Costa Rica's diverse natural landscape and inimitable culture provides visitors with a variety of options to nurture the mind, body and soul. The close proximity of activities near San Jose means visitors can make a lon...

“A major IT system failure” caused the cancelation of all British Airways flights to and from Heathrow and Gatwick, London yesterday and through this Sunday morning, causing the airports to become severely congested and affecting thousands of travelers. British Airways operates direct flights from London to Costa Rica All checking and operational systems were affected by what they believe was ...

Tortuguero National Park in the Costa Rican North Caribbean is known as an ecological paradise, a place where different species of sea turtles find a nesting refuge and many national and international tourists visit every year looking for a small taste of a lost paradise; however, community leaders in the area have raised their voice to alert of a contamination problem with sewage waters that has ...

The Turrialba Volcano in Cartago continued with constant eruptions throughout this week, most of them not exceeding the 500 meters above the active crater, but according to the National University’s Volcanology and Seismology Research Institute (OVSICORI), there are at least four or five every hour lasting under one minute. These frequent eruptions have been releasing gases and ash, and some ...

The tourism industry is many times criticized for the negative impact it can bring to a country, in the case of Costa Rica, it is often that you hear people complaining about the many developments in Guanacaste for example, many of which benefit huge international companies like hotel chains. The effect on the environment is another concern. These feelings were recently expressed by many when t...

Supported by a good crowd of fans, Costa Rican Hanna Gabriels successfully defended her WBO/WBA Female Super Welterweight Titles. Both fighters came out punching the moment the bell rang, Spence perhaps was bolder and more aggressive not considering the distance when facing a taller Gabriels and walking into some unnecessary punches. The second round it was mostly Spence that looked for an o...

A 35-year-old man by the last names Rojas Retana was arrested this past Tuesday by the Costa Rican police in Desamparados, San José, as he is the main suspect of raping a 9 year-old girl on several ocassions and having distributed the pornografic material through the dark web. The Costa Rica police received an alert from Interpol stating that they had traced the origin of somo 300 videos of chi...

The Ministry of Environment of Costa Rica released a new website that provides information regarding the country’s natural resources. The website www.crn.go.cr , where CRN (Spanish acronym) stands for Accounting of the Natural Resources, is a tool that allows the country to determine if its economic growth is sustainable; in other words, it provides details on the capacity of the country to gen...

During the “Cup of Excellence” contest which took place this week in the Bouganvillea Hotel in Heredia, coffee tasters from nine countries chose coffee from Don Antonio farm part of the Group Los Grande de Copey, from the Tarrazú region, as the best in Costa Rica. Experienced coffee tasters from Japan, South Korea, Australia, Bulgaria, China, Germany, U.S.A., Colombia and Costa Rica tasted coff...

The province of Cartago has many wonderful touristic sites, mountain destinations that provide the perfect hideaway, places to step away from the noisy and busy city life and find yourself in touch with nature, clean air and amazing scenic views, even if its just for a day its worth the trip. Along the road that takes you from the city of Orosí to Tapantí there is a place called Monte Sky, an i...

According to data by the Costa Rica’s Social Security Service (CCSS), every week 3 Costa Ricans are diagnosed with oral cancer, and 2 die as a consequence of it. In the United States and according to the Oral Cancer Foundation “Close to 49,750 Americans will be diagnosed with oral oropharyngeal cancer this year. It will cause over 9,750 deaths, killing roughly 1 person per hour, 24 hours per day. ...

As he prepares his game plan for the upcoming qualifying match against Panama, head coach Oscar Ramírez confirmed his roster for La Sele in a press conference this Friday. Ramirez’ main concern is the number of sanctioned players in the team and with this in mind he took previsions when calling the players to take part of the next two matches of the hex stage to ensure the pass of the male nati...

Costa Rican female world boxing champion Hanna Gabriels and her opponent, Canadian Natasha Spence successfully got through the weigh-in ceremony this Friday. Gabriels hit the mark at 153.56lbs (69.8 kg) while Natasha Spence marked 150.7 lbs (68.5 kg), three pounds under the weight limit of 154 lbs. The Costa Rican will be defending her WBO/WBA Female World Super Welterweight Titles on Saturd...

Spanish tenor José Carreras will be performing live in Costa Rica at the Coca Cola amphitheater of Parque Viva alongside the Costa Rica Symphony Orchestra. The information was confirmed by Free Productions, the company in charge of bringing the artist to Costa Rican soil, during a press conference. “For us it is a great satisfaction that The Legendary Tenor José Carreras Final World Tour ha...

El Cafetal Corporate Center located in Belén, Heredia, next to the Marriot Hotel, has announced the start of the construction of its second stage, which involves three new buildings. The first stage of El Cafetal has four buildings where companies such as Citi Costa Rica, Cargill Business Services, Deloitte Costa Rica and 3M have established their offices; there is also the commercial area wher...

The National Emergency Commission called a yellow alert for the county of Tilarán in Guanacaste since it has suffered the effects of heavy rainfall that has caused landslides, flooding and different emergencies that have forced the closure of some roads and the evacuation of families. The road between Nuevo Arenal and the touristic area of La Fortuna in San Carlos is currently closed due to sev...

The National Symphonic Orchestra will give a free concert this Friday, May 26th at the Santa Ana catholic church starting at 7 p.m. This is not the first time that a concert of this type is held at the Santa Ana Church, this community has organized several times before the Baroque Music Festival in this same site. This time Directed by Bruno Procopio, the Symphonic Orchestra will present a repe...