File Photo An armed man was shot dead by Tourism Police officers in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica after a foot pursuit in a mountainous forest. According to a report by Evelin Andino Espinoza of daily tabloid Diario Extra, Tourism Police officers assigned to Punta Uva of Manzanillo, province of Limon, were in pursuit of various armed suspects when one of them suddenly fired multiple times...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Ligia Fallas, a legislator who represents the Caribbean city of Limon under the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) political party, is standing her ground with regard to a derogatory comment she made about Costa Rica in reaction to a port construction project. Last week, Legislator Fallas took to social network Twitter to express her dissatisfaction over the approval given t...

Source: Flickr CC The loveable city of San Jose will be filled with horses this Friday, and by the end of the traditional Tope (equestrian parade), there will be plenty of horse fecal matter left on the street and sidewalks of Costa Rica’s capital. As reported by Annie Innecken Zúñiga of daily tabloid Diario Extra, this year’s Tope will begin next to the train tracks on Plaza Gonzalez Viquez; ...

Source: Blue Osa The Active Times, a major online source of information about active, adventurous and healthy vacations, recently announced its Top Ten List of Health and Wellness Vacations for 2015, and Costa Rica made the list. The Active Times based its Top Ten picks on the following criteria:   For some, "getting away" not only means venturing to a quiet, calm and secluded retreat...

Source: Wikimedia Commons TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - December 23, 2014) - Tropical adventure came a little bit closer to residents of Alberta this week as Sunwing Vacations launched a new direct flight service from Edmonton to Liberia, Costa Rica. On the way to one of the country's most captivating regions, passengers were treated to award-winning Sunwing Airlines' Champagne Service, which fe...

A surprising, last-minute resolution by the Committee on Traditional Celebrations of the Santa Cruz canton to move the National Folklore Festival is being blamed on politics and the Chikungunya virus. According to Guanacaste news website Primero en Noticias, the hasty resolution consists of moving the fair from Plaza Lopez, also known as Los Mangos, to the fairgrounds, and the reason given by the ...

Tax collectors in Costa Rica are ready to start looking for owners of luxury properties who lease their homes for less than 30 days at time; however, they currently lack the legislative approval to do so. This does not mean that preliminary investigations will cease until a law is passed; in fact, revenue investigators will increase their intelligence collection in the next few months.   ...

Source: Forbes Are there any lavish resorts in Costa Rica that can attain the coveted 5-star rating? Since the late 1950s, the world of luxury travel accommodations has been scrutinized by the star rating system made famous by the Mobil Travel Guide, which is now known as the Forbes Travel Guide. Five stars means luxury, which happens to be an emerging travel sector in Costa Rica. A 5-star rat...

Costa Rica is a land of many attractive sunsets, and one of the best spots to see the sun go down amidst vanilla skies that seemed to have floated out of a Monet painting is Dominical, one of the prettiest coastal towns in our country. In recent years, Playa Dominical has attracted tourists who wish to keep this wonderful tourism secret all to themselves. As previously reported by The Costa Rica S...

In this video recently shared by a YouTube user, an agile three-toed sloth in Costa Rica negotiates a tin roof and wooden beams of what appears to be a rustic shack in a tourist hotspot. A few important observations about this video: As we all know, sloths are adorable. This was not a lazy sloth by any means; it seems to have covered about 25 meters of roof in four minutes. Notwithstanding...

Source: Wikimedia Commons In the wake of the geopolitically significant announcement by the governments of the United States and Cuba with regard of their intent to renew diplomatic ties, speculation has emerged about the possibility of Cuba becoming a prime tourism destination for budget travelers. Since Costa Rica is widely considered to be the reigning queen of tourism in the Americas, how ...

Source: Bing In 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge, Lebron James, Beyonce, the Kardashian clan, and Costa Rica had something very interesting in common: They topped Internet queries from United States users on search engine giant Bing, owned and operated by Microsoft. Within the category of Vacation Destinations, Costa Rica was not only the most searched term on Bing; it was also the only Central ...

In late September, The Costa Rica Star reported on a project undertaken by the Directorate of Conservation in the Central Pacific Area to install warning signs along the Tarcoles River advising residents and tourists about the presence of potentially dangerous caimans. The heart of the problem is feeding the numerous spectacled caimans (Caiman sclerops) that have migrated to that region from the C...

As the United States continues to climb out of the Great American Recession, tourists are busy planning their 2015 vacation. Latin America is emerging as a favorite region for U.S. tourists to visit, and Costa Rica is returning to the annual list compiled by online travel site Priceline.com.   According to Priceline, Costa Rica is the fifth nation on the Top Ten list of international tr...

UN-Cruise Ship La Pinta Un-Cruise Adventures is a specialty line of cruise ships that emphasize in luxury and adventure on smaller vessels. This unique cruise line is the recipient of the 2016 Reader's Choice Award by Porthole Cruise Magazine, and CEO Dan Blanchard took the opportunity to announce the inclusion of Costa Rica as a destination for the 2016 cruise season. Here's the official pres...

German airline Condor is the latest European carrier increasing its number of flights to Costa Rica. Such is the report by Tatiana Gutierrez Wa-Chong of business weekly El Financiero, published by Grupo Nacion. The new flight on Tuesday increases the number of flights between Frankfurt and the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) to three per week.   The new Condor flight connect...

El Avion Restaurant and Bar, 22 Manuel Antonio Road, Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica Two major tourism spots in Costa Rica are made from decommissioned aircraft that used to fly around the world. The Costa Rica Star has previously reported on these two unique attractions: One is a former United States military cargo plane with an interesting Cold War background that has been converted into a bar...

The Guanacaste province continues to lead the way in terms of luxury resort development in Costa Rica. Earlier this year, The Costa Rica Star reported on the development activity by the Apple Leisure Group at the massive Santa Elena tourism complex in La Cruz of Guanacaste; that project has been finalized just in time for the high tourist season, which is just a few weeks away. Here is the officia...

A special geodesic instrument similar to devices that connect to the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network will measure minuscule terrain changes near the Turrialba volcano for the purpose of assessing future eruptions. In the meantime, the forecast for acid rain in some regions of Costa Rica remains along with warnings about continuing ash clouds. Scientists from the Observatory on...

Hundreds of cruise ship tourists who arrived in Costa Rica to explore the natural beauty and hospitality of the Caribbean region were instead trapped in their tour buses for hours as a result of the dock workers strike in the ports of Limon and Moin. The strike, which recently came to an end thanks to the intervention of the Ombudsman, lasted two weeks and was tainted by violence perpetrated by cr...

Thanks to JetBlue Airways, residents of the Greater Boston area in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can now board a flight from Logan International Airport (BOS) and in just a few hours they could find themselves enjoying the pristine beaches of Costa Rica's Gold Coast. On November 1st, JetBlue announced a strategy to connect New England residents with choice Latin American and Caribbean destinat...

With spa vacations and delicious traditional cuisine, officials from the National Tourism Board of Costa Rica (Spanish initials ICT) are currently in London along with 32 tour operators and hoteliers for the 2014 World Travel Market. In preparation for this event, the ICT contacted 25 important tourism business entities in the United Kingdom and key Eruopean markets for the purpose of making our c...

San Jose, Costa Rica (PRWEB) October 26, 2014 Skål International announces Rios Tropicales, Costa Rica’s leading adventure company, as the winner of its 2014 Sustainable Tourism Award in the category of Tour Operators. What began in 1985 as a simple dream to pursue a love of paddling, provide jobs for fellow Costa Ricans and support rainforest land protection developed into Rios Tropicales, Cos...

On Day Three of her Costa Rica real estate adventure, Boston accountant Kristine Gorman gets even closer to fulfilling her dream of retiring in our country. On Days One and Two of her trip to Guanacaste, Kris and her family stayed in Playa Flamingo and were very close to making a formal offer on a home on a condo in Tamarindo Beach. To learn more about Kris and her expat mission, read our previous...

Source: Flickr Kristine Gorman is a tax accountant from the New England region who is planning on becoming an expatriate in Costa Rica. She is 41 years young and is looking to one day retire here with her significant other and their 2-year old child. She was recently in Playa Flamingo, looking at properties in one of the Gold Coast beaches of Guanacaste. She has been kind enough to share her e...

A vacation in Costa Rica is probably the easiest and most pleasant task for anyone to undertake, but it is easy to understand how some people may feel uncertain if they are traveling abroad for the first time. This video by Elizabeth Donatelli will dispel all fears, jitters and apprehensions anyone may have about coming to Costa Rica. Elizabeth has been writing, presenting, and producing video ...

For many years, residents, business owners and tourists in the Manuel Antonio community of Quepos have complained about an increase in street-level crimes. From drug dealing to pick pocketing and from vehicle theft to illegal sidewalk sales, street crime has grown on the beach and extended into the pristine Manuel Antonio National Park, one of Costa Rica’s most visited natural attractions. Various...

Although ecotourism and surfing are the top tourism activities in Costa Rica, SCUBA divers in the know have been gradually discovering our numerous underwater havens. In the Pacific Coast we find Isla Murcielago (Bat Islands), part of the Guanacaste Conservation Area. The Bat Islands are located in the midst of the Costa Rica Thermal Convection Dome, the richest concentration of phytoplankton in t...

Upon the arrival of the off-season (or "low season" as it's known here in Costa Rica) most small businesses downshift by reducing prices, scope of services, hours of operation, and staff. Some folks just close their doors and go on vacation. Many also slow down or completely stop their marketing efforts, citing reduced resources and capital intake.   Editor's Note: We have updated this ...

  A young writer from the United States recently found herself besieged in Peñas Blancas, the border crossing point between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as her lack of a travel document nearly prompted an anxiety attack. Emilia Azar, a senior at Elon University in North Carolina traveled to our country with a few noble intentions, one of them being learning to surf; alas, her joyful sojourn h...

Source: Bing Creative Commons From December 19th to January 2014, United Airlines will increase the number of non-stop flights to the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) from the following departure locations: George Bush International Airport in Houston and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey. United Airlines plans to assign Boeing 737-800 aircraft to these additional flights; ...

Houses that used to be airplanes and tree dwellings that seem to have come straight from an Ewok village of the Star Wars universe are among the top offbeat Costa Rica rentals featured by HomeAway.com andVRBO.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner). Both HomeAway and VRBO are website marketplaces similar to Airbnb, whereby travelers can evaluate and review potential residences for short-time rentals in li...

  Source: Virgin Galactic It was only a matter of time before the burgeoning aerospace industry in Costa Rica expanded to include the tourism sector. Terranova Diseño de Viajes (Terranova Travel Planning) recently became Central America's first Accredited Space Agent (ASA), a designation bestowed upon by Virgin Galactic, which belongs to British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin...

Source: Bing commercial reuse Although it is estimated that less than two percent of all visitors who arrive in Costa Rica do so for the purpose of engaging in sexual tourism, this particular travel segment happens to be the most controversial. Thousands of men (and hundreds of women) come to our country each year to get to know some of the locals really well, but what about those couples who ...

Source: ICT Ever since the collapse of the financial markets in 2008 gave way to a period of economic crisis and recession in many developed countries, tourism industry analysts in Costa Rica have observed a sharp drop in the amount of money spent by foreign visitors. A couple of years ago, the same analysts noticed an uptick in the amount of money spend by Costa Ricans exploring their own cou...

Some of the best things to do in Guanacaste, Costa Rica are found at Hotel Hacienda Guachipelin. The dilemma actually is trying to decide what to do, since there is so much from which to choose. That’s why the One Day Adventure Pass or the One Day Nature Pass really is your best bet. If you stay at this Rincon de la Vieja hotel for several days, you can go for both! You don’t necessarily have t...

The Westin in Playa Conchal welcomes frum travelers. Shalom aleichem. Daniel Retter is a New York attorney, religious scholar and author of HaMafteach, a Talmud Bavli Indexed Reference Guide. Mr. Retter recently found himself in the capital city of Costa Rica, the lovable San Jose, whereupon he prayed at the shuls of Chabad Lubavitch in Escazu and the Zionist Israeli Center of Costa Rica in Pa...

More people have drowned along the 17 miles of the Central Pacific Coast, including Esterillos, Playa Hermosa, and Playa Bejuco, than any other stretch of Costa Rica. So why haven’t you heard a warning about it? World Life Expectancy reports Costa Rica as the 101st country out of 192 countries polled with 3.4 reported drownings for every 100,000 people. That’s almost triple the amount of deaths...

Source: Vimeo Mountains, active volcanoes, beaches, lagoons, indigenous people, tourists, locals, Guanacaste... In less than four minutes, filmmaker Patrick Pearson shows viewers the many facets of Costa Rica in a video that has achieved massive viral status across several online social networks. The short film, hosted on Vimeo, has garnered thousands of views and positive comments in just one...

The elegant WTTC data explorer The World Travel and Tourism Travel Council (WTTC), a forum for business leaders in this important global sector, recently released its 2014 economic impact report. Among the highlights of the report, which is presented in a gorgeous interactive Web application featuring an Earth globe that you can manipulate right on your browser, Costa Rica's already sizable co...