Since this is a rural area, bilingual schools and private hospitals are either limited or nonexistent. Other services beyond the basics are difficult to come by as well due to the remoteness of the area. 1. Schools La Fortuna has one public elementary school (takes children up to the age of 11) and one high

One of the reasons the real estate market in this beautiful part of Costa Rica hasn’t taken off is because it isn’t near the ocean. The majority of the foreigners and expatriates buying in Costa Rica are from North America, where beachfront or ocean view properties are prestigious and have become very expensive. There is,

The pasture land that surrounds Arenal and La Fortuna and parts of San Carlos has long been home to cattle ranchers. Nowadays, tourism dominates the local economy around the volcano, and souvenir shops – when not honoring the volcano – pay homage to the past, with cowboy hats, horse regalia and cowboy boots lining the

It’s a rather vast area of the country, and thanks to the difficult mountainous and jungle-covered landscape, the route you take will depend a lot on where you’re coming from and where it is – exactly – that you want to go. The northern zone starts in the west with the city of Tilarán in

This region covers a large area of the country, straddling the provincial border of Alajuela and Guanacaste. The landscape is beautiful and varied, including mountains of Arenal and Tenorio, the Monteverde cloudforest, the plains north of the lake that border Nicaragua, the rainforest, and the pastureland where beef farmers graze their cattle. There are a

The South Caribbean is one of the few remaining areas of the country where the real estate boom has yet to make a substantial mark. It’s not for lack of beauty, leisure activities, or a welcoming community. Rather, it’s because access to the area is difficult and the region’s maintains an exaggerated reputation for bad

The South Caribbean isn’t the place to make a second income from renting out an investment property since rental rates haven’t reached anywhere near what they have on the Pacific Coast and in the Central Valley. Simply enough, demand is lower and on the lower end of the rate scale. Plenty of cute little hotels