In 60 days the ICANN Costa Rica conference is being held in the capital city of San Jose on March 11th.

If your planning on going you better get a planning as the host venue and most of the nearby hotels to the venue are now sold out.

I know it’s not politically correct to bad mouth a venue or host city so I’ll just say that San Jose is probably not going to be the nicest, cleanest nor safest city you’re going to visit in your life.

If you don’t have a reservation for a hotel yet, you might want to check out some hotels in the “nice area” of San Jose which is Escazu which is about 20 minutes from the venue.  There you will find some nice hotels, restaurants an iMax movie and a mall.  Escazu is where the “rich people live”.

Hopefully you will have sometime or before of after the show to check out the rest of Costa Rica which is quite beautiful and has some incredible wildlife, flowers, and yes crocodiles, frogs, sloths and Iguanas of all sizes, including just short of dinosaurs, and come in a rainbow of colors.

We have been fortunate enough to spend some time in Costa Rica so I thought I would give some tips to those that might be going.

Arenal Volcano

This is an active volcano and there are a lot of nearby hotels, spa, and hot springs.

Its a pretty area and on clear nights you will see smoke coming out of the Volcano.

Peninsula Papagayo/FourSeasons

In the northern part of the country several hours from San Jose, for those who like there view their wildlife in luxury and who are deep of pocket, lies  is the beautiful property of the Four Seasons.

If you love golf,  the course is incredible and don’t be surprised if a monkey steals your ball  (you get to drop).

The resort has several manned beaches where you can get some grub and some frosty beverages to wash it down as well as around 20 unmanned beaches all within the property and some of the rooms even come with their own dipping pool.

There are a ton of wildlife around including the howlers, the monkeys that can you hear from miles away, yes even in the middle of the night sometimes.

Their is a second international airport up in that region in the city of Liberia so if you wind up in north you can fly back to many US cities from that airport without traveling back to San Jose.

The closest beach are to San Jose is Jaco Beach which with the new highway can take you anywhere between 1-2 hours to get there.

Most of the wildlife in Jaco in of the two legged variety, so not the spot if you want to see Monkeys and such.

Jaco would appeal to golfers as there is golf course at Los Suenos a resort with a Marriott Hotel, condos and houses for rent.

The resort also features a the biggest marina in Costa Rica with a couple of hundered fishing boats docked there it is the certain of big game fishing in the country if you want to go take a shot at bagging a Marlin.

My favorite area in Costa Rica is Manuel Antonio home to the most visited tourist attraction in Costa Rica Manuel Antonio National Park. (the park is closed on Mondays).

Its going to take you around 3 hours to drive from San Jose to Manuel Antonio, but you will pass by Jaco on the way so you can stop for lunch (there are also flights between San Jose and Manuel Antonio but be warned the plane is very small and may only have one prop.

The part of the National Park which is a must see and for which is was named the 11th most beautiful national park in the world by Forbes, is the white sand beach where you will see monkeys flying in trees above you, sloths, and iguanas.

The coastline and water have nice rock formations and if you time it right,  you can see a spectacular sunset.

In Manuel Antonio there are hotels in all prices ranges and many houses and villas to rent.

Hotel wise you might want to check out the Mariposa Hotel even if it’s just for drinks and its 180 degree view of the beach the Gaia Hotel.

If you want to check out some homes and villas check out Escape Villas.

As few general observations:

Unfortunately March is still high season in Costa Rica so you are going to be paying the high season rates and while you can find some cheap living there, I find the tourist areas to be pretty similar to US prices especially when they add a 10% service charge and a 13% sales tax to every bill including hotels and restaurants.  Since it is high season a lot of stuff gets sold out, especially the high end hotels so if you want to go book soon.

The weather in the beach areas is going to be warm to hot but you shouldn’t have much if any rain as it’s the dry season.

Eating wise stay to the fresh stuff, seafood like seabass, snapper, tuna and shimp, chicken is always good, beef and steak is usually not.

When we go to Costa Rica we leave the jewelry behind, including wedding rings.

You should leave yours home too.

Those real expensive watches, Rolex’s and such, yeah leave them at home too.

A wear my Nike Gator watch while I’m there, highly recommended and how can you go wrong with Orange and blue?

If you have any questions or specific recommendations drop me an email.

Everyone has fun and be safe.

Pura Vida