The surge in tourism and real estate development in the Tamarindo area has coincided with an increase in crime. It is, of course, hard to pin down the exact cause of crime trends, but certainly higher rates of youth drug addiction, and the importation of poor migrant workers have played parts. Also, simply enough, there’s

1. Tico Housing Coldwell Banker’s Quesada says there is a lack of housing for Ticos moving in from the Central Valley to work in management in the high-end tourism resorts. These employees often have to bring their whole families, but are priced out of the existing market, which targets the wealthier buyers. 2. Retail New shops are popping up

1. Private Schools The most well-known private school in Northwest Guanacaste is the Country Day School on the road to Brasilito. It serves the whole area, lessons are taught in English, and the school is capable of preparing students to enter a U.S. university (see reference section for contact details). The increase in expatriates with

Water Northwest Guanacaste is the driest region of Costa Rica, as well as the area with the most tourism and real estate development – not all of it legal. Demand for water is massive, and it’s used for everything from drinking and bathing to filling swimming pools, watering golf courses, and mixing concrete. All this

Especially at this point in time, remember the mantra: Past performance is not indicative of future results. Northwest Guanacaste is just coming off six years of a booming real estate market, where condo sales options (not even the condos – just the options) could be flipped for thousands of dollars in profit. Prices inflated dramatically,

Northwest Guanacaste is cattle country. Before the tourist boom gripped the area, most people were farmers who spent their days herding cattle and working the land. Those who weren’t farmers or ranchers were probably fishermen. People who are used to the freedom of the fields or the ocean are never in very much of a

Public buses service the region’s main towns, but off those main routes it’s almost impossible to get around without a four-wheel drive. The road infrastructure has not kept pace with development. At the time of writing there were several bad patches of main road in the Tamarindo area, as well as several monkey tracks and