My Travel Optimizer

A lil’ blast from the past.

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One of the most famous destinations in Costa Rica is Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio is actually a park and not a town. It is located on the Southern Pacific side and is about three to four hours away (depending on traffic and road conditions) from San Jose by bus or car. The park has beaches that have to be seen to be believed. There are monkeys in the park as well as many other interesting critters.

Before you get to Manuel Antonio you will hit Quepos. This small town is connected to the park by a bus system that departs about every fifteen minutes. The buses run from the early morning to the late evening. A one way taxi ride is about five or six bucks. The taxis are available 24 hours a day. Quepos has cheap hotels and eats. If you want to save money you can stay in Quepos and take a bus to and from the park. There is a small restaurant inside the bus station. The food is cheap and quite good. I like Tico food so I may be biased.

From Quepos you will take the bus and begin to descend to the coast. There are some magnificent vistas on the ride to the park. There are many hotels between Quepos and the park entrance. You can find some great deals here. You may not be able to walk to the beach but some of these hotels have incredible views and the sunsets…wow.

When you complete the descent you will see many hotels, restaurants and shops lining the left side of the road leading to the park entrance. On the right hand side is the beach. The road ends in a cul-de-sac and you can see the entrance to Manuel Antonio a short walk away. This area is touristy but the prices are not outrageous. If you want to eat for cheap there are people selling hot food on the beach. If you really want to save money then buy groceries when you are in Quepos. On the beach you will find many vendors hawking the usual tourist wares; t-shirts, beach towels, arts and crafts, pipes, etc. I’m not really a souvenir type guy so I really can’t comment on the price or quality.

The beach before the park is good for sunbathing or a massage during sunset. The water can be pretty rough so its not always good for swimming. The beaches inside the park are a different matter entirely. They are protected from the waves and current by the geography of the park. There’s Playa Espadilla Sur and Playa Manuel Antonio. Playa Espadilla Sur is crazy beautiful. If you were going to design and build an ideal tropical beach it would look pretty much like this.

Playa Espadilla is one of the beaches on the narrow strip of land (see pic above) connecting the hill-like outcropping to the mainland. The hiking in the park in great. The rainforest is beautiful and filled with animals. There are some great vistas from the higher elevations in the park.

Further inside the park is Puerto Escondido. Its a bit of a hike and you have to be ready to climb down some rocks to the actual beach. No elevator or stairs, sorry. Puerto Escondido means “hidden port” in English. Once you see it you’ll know why. Tall cliff walls flank a narrow inlet leading to the beach. Its something out of “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Master and Commander”. Very dramatic and well worth the effort.

There are guides outside the park who will show you around for a fee. I think they are worth the extra expense because they can point out many plants and animals that you will probably miss.

The park can be experienced in one day. If you want to hang around longer and soak up its atmosphere that’s up to you. Its pretty touristy but that’s good for families and security. How much you want to spend is up to you. You definitely have some options.

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Tags: Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio

When you are traveling in Tropical areas outside of the United States it is a good habit to use insect repellent. Malaria, Dengue fever and other nasty diseases are transmitted via mosquito bites. Dengue and Malaria exist in Costa Rica but are rare.

The usual standby has been DEET bug spray. DEET works but it’s a greasy, toxic mess that stains your clothes. It’s better than Malaria or West Nile Virus but it is still a toxic chemical that probably isn’t too good for you in the long run. I’ve read warnings stating that pregnant women should not use it.

An alternative is Icaridin. Its not as greasy, odorous or rough on fabrics as DEET.

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I want to talk about about something I’ve found that has really helped me out in organizing my life. Like most modern people I have a lot of stuff to keep up with. There’s a ton of payments; utilities, cell phone, internet, student loan, car payment, etc. How often do you need to go the store to pick up a cable, cleaning product, food item, etc? I also like to keep track of certain movie releases (sometimes when I remember them they’re already out of the theater) and other entertainment. Let’s not forget anniversaries, birthdays, special occasions, etc.

I found a service called Rememberthemilk.com that is quite simply, the dog’s balls. That means its awesome.

Remember the Milk has a smart, easy to use interface that allows you to create reminders for yourself. You can set up a to do list with links to websites and other info. It will email you these reminders or you can log in to the site. You can also set these reminders up to be cyclical for tasks you repeat every month like (cell phone payments.)

But the absolute best part of rememberthemilk.com is the firefox extension for gmail. This extension integrates Remember the Milk with gmail. If you are a regular gmail user this totally rocks.

Did I mention this is free?

There are a lot things one has to before leaving on a trip and Remember the Milk has become part of my process. Its great to have such an easy way to remember all the stuff I have to do with my life.

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I would guess most readers of this blog are familiar with social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace. There are other sites that help people to network for purposes other than socialization. All these sites and services fall under the description of social media. One of the services I use is called Wesabe. It is similar to a service called Mint. They are both financial management sites built around a community schema. In plain English, they analyze your financial transactions and offer advice from a community of users.

Both Wesabe and Mint require access to your bank accounts. When I first signed up with Wesabe and I saw this I was like “whaaaaat!” I looked them up on Google. My judgment is that they are as safe as Paypal or Amazon. I’m also someone who works in IT and I know that proper practices and procedures, data can be safer online than in the physical world. Think of all the times that you give your credit card to a server in a restaurant. You don’t know these people from Adam yet you trust them with not just your card number but the card itself. During the few minutes they are gone they could easily swipe your card through a scanner and take down all your data. They will also have the security number on the back and the card. The cherry on the top is a copy of your signature.

I’m not trying to make you paranoid about going to restaurants. I’m just trying to illustrate that the online world is not inherently more insecure than the physical one. That being said, please do your own research on Google before divulging sensitive information to anyone.

I’m a huge believer in the ability of the internet to allow us to organize and manage our lives and therefore make us more productive and efficient. I’m passing this information along because I have an open-source mentality and I believe that sharing information is in, most cases, a win-win scenario.

So what does all of this have to do with Travel? Well, it takes money to travel and maybe these websites can help you have more coin for your trips.

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Tags: Mint.com, Social Media, Wesabe