My Travel Optimizer

Costa Rica is one of the most developed countries in Latin America. The only Intel microchip factory in all of Latin America is located in Costa Rica. HP,Procter and Gamble and many other large corporations have offices and facilities in this country. You can read more about it here.

I mention this to illustrate what a tech-savvy population Costa Rica has. I’ve found this to be true when it comes to their online presence. I have family and contacts in Costa Rica but I still look to web for information. My wife and I are going to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas at the Mirador Lodge in the Monteverde area. I found the lodge at a website here. This site is part of www.anywherecostarica.com. I have used this site before and have had good experiences. The staff have been super-courteous and the hotels have been great.

Costa Rica is a pretty progressive place so they have wrapped their heads around the internet and its possibilities quite well. You’ll find many internet cafe’s in Costa Rica and many Ticos are online. I was in the Southern Pacific zone of Costa Rica a couple of years ago. Its comfortably undeveloped. No big resorts but you aren’t cut off from the civilized world either. We drove from our cabins to a little jungle-outpost type of deal. There was a small grocery store, a hardware store and pharmacy all surrounded by tropical vegetation. There was a sign indicating that there was an internet cafe on the second floor. In my mind I saw a sparse room with some old desktops and CRT monitors running Windows ME or 98. I walked up a small flight of stairs and opened an unassuming door and went inside. It was like being teleported to a Starbucks in Seattle. The interior was just like a North American coffee shop. They had the baristas, the pastries, the wood floor, the furniture, etc. There were many people sitting around, sipping coffee, eating pastries and surfing on new Dell laptops(provided by the cafe). The laptops were on a wireless network which connected to the internet via satellite. This, to me, speaks volumes about Costa Rica.

When making hotel reservations in Costa Rica many places will ask you to fax them a copy of your credit card with your signature. Alternatively you can print out the form, sign it, scan it and email back as a pdf. This is the law in Costa Rica and its not a bad thing.

I’m making reservations for the beginning and end of the trip but we’ll be winging it in the middle a bit. I have a cousin down there who has graciously offered us to stay with him for the New Years. He is also an mountain bike enthusiast. Awesome.

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Tags: Hotels, websites

Brianna, my wife, at Boyette Scrub trails in Florida.

My wife and I love to mountain bike. We enjoy the “mountain” part as much, if not more, than the “bike” part. We’re not the radical types who like to dress up like Star Wars stormtroopers and then throw ourselves off the side of a cliff. What we do like is to ride into remote areas where we can be far away from civilization. We are fortunate to live in Florida where mountain biking is available almost year round. We ride all year except for the hottest part of the summer. Its possible to ride in the summer but you need to start riding just as the sun comes up because by 9 its sweltering.

This is November and the weather is perfect for riding. I can’t wait for the weekend!

We are planning to do some riding while we are in Costa Rica. The only real issue is acquiring the bikes. We considered taking our bikes down there but that is no easy proposition. US Airways charges $100 each way to transport bikes. That’s $400 for a round trip. Not a small sum. We then considered buying the bikes down there. You can buy a mountain bike here in Tampa at Wal-mart for $80 dollars. They’re cheaply made but they’ll hold up for a two week trip. I spoke with family members in Costa Rica and they told me a couple of cheap bikes would be about more than $400. Costa Rica Tariffs are very high. I checked out UPS and Fedex but they were, as I thought, prohibitively expensive.

I found a place that rents mountain bikes for $22 a day. Their website is here. That’s $44 a day for two people. Ten days=$440. Cost wise there is no clear advantage to any option I’ve described. So what to do? Well, transporting bikes by plane is, frankly, a pain in the ass. The bikes must be in a box or a carrying case (more $$$). You don’t have to break it down completely but you have to loosen and turn the handlebars and take off the pedals. You also have to get the bikes to and from the airport and that isn’t going to be very smooth with a regular taxi.

Since this is a relatively short trip we will go with rentals. Its not a money saver but it its a lot less hassle.

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Tags: Costa Rica, Mountain biking

I’ve recommended opening a checking account specifically for your travels. This way you can leave the debit card for your primary account at home. I found another easy way to get a Visa debit card. I was at Wal-Mart buying a cable when I saw that they were selling Wal-Mart brand Visa debit cards. You buy the card there and then put whatever amount of money you want on it.

The Wal-Mart card is less hassle than opening a checking account. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in Costa Rica seeing as it is a Visa card. I’m going to get one with a couple hundred bucks on it before I leave. I’ll see if I have any problems. You’ll get a full report when I get back.

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Tags: debit cards

I am a huge, huge fan of GPS. I have it in my car and I use a hand held when I am mountain biking or exploring. GPS has made my traveling more efficient and rewarding. It has saved me the aggravation and the loss of precious time that occurs when you get lost.

I just found a company that makes GPS maps specifically for Costa Rica. The company is called Navsat and you can find their website here. From that website you can link to their ebay store.

Their maps are compatible with every modern GPS device that I can think of. You can load them up directly to the device or onto a smart card.

I have not used them personally but the feedback on Ebay is very good. I read about them on a post in TripAdvisor.

I’ll load it up on my Garmin Nuvi when I go down to CR. I’m getting the Garmin etrek Vista before I leave. It comes preloaded with a map of the Americas but I’ll add the Navsat map on the card and see how it goes. I’ll give a full review when I get back.

BTW the Garmin Nuvi is a GPS for road vehicles that fits nicely on the dashboard or windshield. The eTrek is a handheld unit. The Nuvi series are intended for driving and behave accordingly. The eTreks were designed with the hiker or mountain biker in mind.

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Tags: GPS

Wow. We live in exciting times. God bless America and God bless our new President, Barak Obama.

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