My Travel Optimizer

Here is a link for waterproof (its plastic) map of Costa Rica. It’s accurate, well marked with hotels, restaurants, parks, etc.
http://mapcr.com/
If you order the physical map you will receive, free, the PDF map. Just go to the mapcr.com web page and go to downloads. Enter in the order number from google checkout and you’re done.  [...]

All citizens of the United States are Americans but not all Americans are citizens of the United States. Costa Ricans, Ecuadorians and Chileans are all Americans just as English, French and Italian are all Europeans. European does not mean a resident of the UK exclusively.
I’m a practical person. If I am in Europe and I [...]

I see people ask in forums if they should wait to buy clothes in Costa Rica.  If you live in the United States I recommend you do all your shopping at home.  The selection will be better and ,in most cases, the price will be cheaper.  You can eat and stay in hotels in Costa [...]

Despite the bad news in the media this country is not experiencing the hard times of the Great Depression (30% unemployment) or the suffering of poor countries in Africa or South America. Things aren’t great but they aren’t that bad either. I’m not trivializing the suffering of others but I am trying to maintain [...]

Here are some of the ways that I save money on food when I am in Costa Rica. The first thing I do is avoid all North American franchise restaurants. They are very expensive. They cost even more than their North American counterparts. On a personal note I would not travel all that way [...]