Costa Rica’s northwestern county of La Cruz in the province of Guanacaste inaugurated a new road connecting various coastal communities which is the result of a novel cooperation between local businesses and government institutions. The project is expected to open further economic development in the remote, underdeveloped region. The National Roadways Council (Conavi) teamed up with Hotel Dream...

There was a time when many beaches in Costa Rica remained “undiscovered” and “secret” , hidden away from tourists and protected by nature, without access roads, signs, or anything that will give away their location. Nowadays with technology and the availability of information it is very difficult to keep anything a secret, especially when it comes to paradisaical beaches. Yet, there are a few s...

Every year, Costa Rica's Blue Flag Program receives applications for their "Blue Flag" ecological recognition which rewards community efforts towards sustainable development. The program is a joint effort of the Costa Rican Tourism Institute and the Ecological Blue Flag National Commission, known in Costa Rica simply as the "Bandera Azul" program. The Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) anno...

 - Police aid Italian woman recover her purse in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca A heightened police presence in the Caribbean tourist town of Puerto Viejo, south of the post city of Limón, has allowed police to prevent crime and also intervene successfully in some recent incidents. The increase in police came on the heels of the murder of a Canadian teacher who had left his hotel to take photographs e...

Residents of Playa Tamarindo in Costa Rica’s northern Pacific Guanacaste province are opposing the construction of a restaurant and cafeteria in an area declared for public use by the Santa Cruz Municipal Council, which has jurisdiction over Tamarindo Beach. On Sunday, March 19, 223 residents were on the site of a planned park along Playa Tamarindo which suffered some damages and tree removals ...

In a country riddled with waterfalls and rainforests, and bounded by sparkling oceans, the dry northern region of Guanacaste, Costa Rica which borders Nicaragua, often suffers from water shortages. The rapid growth of tourism and construction have stressed the low-lying water tables, and caused some aquifers to become salinized and the water unfit for human consumption, such as in Playa Panama....

More than often it is overlooked, perhaps because of the misconception that insecurity is higher in this province (San José is actually the province with highest crime rate); or maybe because there are no huge, luxury resorts; others don’t like the drive, as the road (Route 32) is considered dangerous; whatever the reasons may be, the fact is that Limón Province and the beaches in the Caribbean Co...

There is no doubt that Costa Rica is a land of contrasts, and few places demonstrate this more than the Central Pacific coast, where several mountain ranges meet the Pacific Ocean, creating some of the most spectacular landscapes one can imagine. Stretching from the southern tip of the city of Puntarenas all the way down to Punta Uvita, the region offers something for everyone; from busy beach ...

This year Holy Week begins Sunday, April 9th, normally for this celebration Costa Rica has two mandatory holidays, Maundry Thursday and Good Friday; this year however an additional holiday celebrated in Costa Rica falls precisely in that same week, Tuesday, April 11th, with the celebration of Juan Santamaría Day (national hero). With three mandatory holidays hoteliers expect to have very busy wee...

According to MarViva Foundation 80% of the residues in our oceans are plastic, and 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year, a group of concerned Costa Rican’s take it upon themselves to make a difference and help the environment by collecting the plastic that washes ashore in the different beaches, one of these groups is the Nicoya Peninsula Waterkeeper, a non-government organiza...

The operators of the ferry service linking Puntarenas with Paquera on the Nicoya Peninsula, Naviera Tambor, S.A., has been granted a 10-year extension of their concession to run the service, said the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works (MOPT, in Spanish) this week. Paquera links tourists to the nearby beaches of Tambor, Mal País, Montezuma, Santa Teresa and others in the southern Nicoya...

Costa Rica moves forward with its nature conservation agenda by signing into law a National Wetlands Policy this week. Luis Guillermo Solís, President of the Republic, attended the launch of this historic public policy together with environmental authorities and representatives of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Costa Rica has more than two thousand wetlands that fall under th...

Costa Rican police have noted a significant drop in thefts and break-ins in the popular Central Pacific tourist region during the first two months of 2017. Police are attributing the decline to changes in their policing which includes strengthened preventive actions and greater cooperation with other regional agencies, said the Public Security Ministry. Thefts decreased by 66 cases in Januar...

This article was updated on Thursday, March 9 with correct name information for the victim. By Wendy Anders Today, in the early morning hours, a man was discovered lying along the side of the road with stab wounds in his stomach in the center of Puerto Viejo, a tourist beach town in the Atlantic coastal province of Limón, reported judicial investigative police (OIJ) press officials this afte...

An unexpected tragedy was in store last weekend for Canada’s Manitoba Rugby team who was in Costa Rica competing in the Rainforest 7s competition. On a trip to Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, player Peter Scouras, 33, drowned Monday around noon in the rough surf at Playa Hermosa beach, and Red Cross officials who responded to the accident were unable to resuscitate him, according to local Red Cross...

By Wendy Anders Yesterday, the Costa Rican Ministry of Health issued a statement to inform the public that Manuel Antonio National Park was granted a 3-month extension on the period of time allotted to carry out necessary improvements to the area’s infrastructure. The Central Pacific Regional Directorate extended the time-frame granted under the sanitary order ARS-A-OS-022-2017 issued earlie...

The Costa Rican State Electricity Agency (ICE, its Spanish acronym) is working to get the Pacific surf towns of Mal País, Santa Teresa and El Carmen better connected, said the company yesterday. With a team of 50 technicians, the country’s fiber optics network is being expanded in this region of the Costa Rican Pacific located on the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula. The improvements wil...

By Wendy Anders A 55-year-old Costa Rican man was described by local media as being in “stable condition” after being bitten by a crocodile several times in his left leg yesterday evening at Herradura beach near Jacó along Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast. Firefighter rescuers were called from the local Garabito station to aid just before 6:00 p.m., said Costa Rica’s Channel 7 Teletica new...

By Wendy Anders The Ministry of Health yesterday delivered an ultimatum to Manuel Antonio National Park officials: Comply with health orders, or face closure on Monday, said Protur, a pro-tourism business association based in Quepos, Puntarenas, the town adjacent to the park. A closure of the park at the height of tourist season could damage the country's international tourism standings, as ...

Coast Guard officials in Quepos, Puntarenas near Manuel Antonio National Park on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast found a surprise visitor on their gate when they arrived for work yesterday morning: a three-toed sloth who appeared to be pregnant, reported the agency. Sloths are clumsy and slow, and therefore very vulnerable, on the ground. Their habitat is the canopies of small- and medium-he...

By Wendy Anders A search for a missing young woman from the U.S. in Panama ended Sunday when police found her body on a hiking trail near Bocas del Toro, an archipelago along Panama’s northern Caribbean coast. No information has been forthcoming regarding the possible cause of her death, said local media. Friends and family posted messages on social media late Thursday, February 2 after C...

The users of TripAdvisor voted to pick the best Central America beaches of 2016, and Costa Rica managed to get 5 of its beautiful beaches listed among the Top 10, and actually four of them made it among the Top 5, however, none of them earned first place. The first place went to West Bay Beach in Honduras, located in Roatan, this white sand beach with light blue clear waters is known as a great...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  It’s a great time to be living in Costa Rica - far from the maddening politics dividing the United States of America right now. Although only a 3-hour flight from Houston or Orlando, Costa Rica is a world away from President Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, R...

The groundhog Phil, the world's most famous weather-predicting animal, on Thursday forecast six more weeks of winter in the United States before the attentive gaze of numerous spectators and reporters who gathered to observe the traditional annual prognostication, now in its 131st year. Each Feb. 2 since 1887, the public in the western Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney, has climbed the small hi...

By Wendy Anders When your community is 80-90 percent based on tourism, every detail matters. That’s why business leaders in the surf haven of Tamarindo, Guanacaste stay on top of a whole host of local issues. From promoting tourism to educating citizens on limiting water use, Hernán Imhoff, newly re-elected president of the Tamarindo Chamber of Commerce and Tourism (CCTT) can’t neatly summar...

By Wendy Anders The National Meteorological Institute (IMN, in Spanish) said gusts of up to 85 kmh (more than 50 mph) would be affecting several areas of the country including San José this week. Mountainous areas are likely to experience the brunt of the gales, said scientists, who said that Monday’s highest winds were registered in Escazú, Ciudad Colón, and mountainous areas of the norther...

By Wendy Anders The reintroduction of a bill that would allow ocean trawling has environmental groups in Costa Rica up in arms at the government’s support for such practices. “Trawling is the most destructive fishing technique, and there are no studies anywhere in the world that demonstrate its sustainability,” said a coaltion of 15 environmental groups, who noted that the draft of law 19,83...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica’s national beach soccer team faced off against Japan in two friendly matches this weekend, said the Costa Rican soccer federation (Fedefut). During Saturday's match at the beach soccer field at Fedefut’s Alajuela soccer complex, the Japanese played a game of great speed with effective offensive action, reported Fedefut. This duel ended with a score of 4-3 in fav...

Costa Rica has many beautiful beaches that attract local and foreign tourists alike; they are without a doubt one of the many treasures this country has, however, some of these beaches suffer from a certain level of pollution, like it happens in every country, naturally some of the most polluted beaches tend to be some of the most visited ones. Costa Rica makes big efforts in implementing diffe...

By Wendy Anders Amid the lush forests and remote beaches of Corcovado National Park, southern Costa Rica’s biodiversity hotspot, Costa Rican police often find themselves on the front line of the illicit drug trade between South and North America. Early yesterday morning, Costa Rican police patrolling the stunning southern Pacific coast located eleven rectangular packages wrapped in a sack-li...

By Wendy Anders An estimated 90 thousand people in Costa Rica’s northern province of Guanacaste don’t know what to do with their trash, said the regional La Voz de Guanacaste newspaper this week. While existing legislation requires municipalities to collect trash from all residents, none of Guanacaste’s 11 counties provide full coverage for garbage collection services, said the paper. Car...

By Wendy Anders Recent incursions of European tourists into protected marine areas off northern Costa Rica’s Pacific coast has officials concerned about the impact of promoting illegal fishing among visitors, said the Costa Rican National Coast Guard Service recently. Fishermen have been documented aiding tourists from Spain, Italy and Germany mainly in the waters off Guanacaste province’s S...

By Wendy Anders Park guards at the highly visited Manuel Antonio National Park in the country's Central Pacific region are up in arms at having to take over charging entry fees, saying their work monitoring the park, especially during high season will be effected by the new duties. "We are very concerned about this issue that now, in addition to looking after the park, we have to charge tick...

By Wendy Anders Local residents of Quepos, the small port town bordering Manuel Antonio National Park on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast, greeting some New Year’s Day would-be robbers with a brutal surprise. They intervened when they attempted to rob a foreign tourist; and didn’t stop till his car was smashed and police came to haul him off, reported CRHoy.com citing local tourist police ...

By Wendy Anders Tamarindo Beach’s Ocaso Festival begins this week with a delicious, varied line-up of music, art, and gastronomy. Entrance is free for attendees who sign up at the festival’s site, but space is limited (www.ocasofestival.com), said event organizers in a press statement. The festival starts this Thursday, January 5, and lasts for four straight days of fun under the sun. ...

Lima, Dec. 30 — This capital's La Pampilla beach has become the first in Peru and in Latin America with night-time lighting, an improvement the municipal government says aims to encourage the country's world-class surfers to extend their activity past sunset. Starting this week, 1,000-watt LED lights atop four posts 18 meters (59 ft) high will illuminate the shoreline in the Lima district of Mira...

Visitors in Costa Rican beaches usually get a lot of safety warnings: don’t leave valuable items unattended, watch out for the red flags indicating rip currents, don’t drink and swim, watch out for crocodiles or sea snakes, etc. What we usually don’t hear is Do Not Touch the Manchineel Tree! Manchineel trees (Hippomane Mancinella), are very common, they are found all the way from Florida t...

There are plenty of travelers that don’t identify themselves with just one particular vacation style, but instead they are looking for the perfect combination of activities and destinations to satisfy their preferences. For example, some like staying in a secluded hotel where they can relax but also have the possibility of doing some outdoor activities and even adventure tourism. Others want ...

By Wendy Anders Rio Perdido Lodge, Guanacaste Costa RicaPhoto: FB Rio Perdido Looking to purchase a home or property in Costa Rica? Guanacaste in the country’s northern Pacific region sports many beach towns that have become havens for foreign residents to set up a second home, a retirement home, a business, or a combination of these. Before you buy, it’s advisable to get the local sc...

By Wendy Anders Firefighters in Costa Rica, source Facebook. The Tamarindo Chamber of Commerce and Tourism was proud to announce the opening this month of a fire station in the nearby town of Huacas, 9 kilometers from Tamarindo. The station will have one fire truck and eight firefighters, said the chamber in a press release. Prior to the inauguration, the nearest fire stations were in...