I took my family last Sunday morning early and travelled to Esterillos for a short vacation. Travelling for fun rather than to investigate properties gives one a totally different perspective.  The journey is 2 hours at this time and encompasses some magnificent  mountains, quaint little towns such as Atenas,  Lagarita, San Mateo,  Orotina, Jaco beach, Playa Hermosa and Esterillos.

It has been months since I just sat back a took in all the sights.  We have a new highway completing soon that will join the ever popular central Pacific with the Capital. The quality and progress of this route are very impressive. Even now with construction and detours, it only took 25 minutes from Orotina to Jaco.  Soon it will be only a total of 45 minutes from San  Jose to the Coast and it’s many great resorts, the very famous Jaco Beach resorts and Vacation Properties. This opens up the ever growing Central Pacific Real Estate market for retirement living due to it’s closeness to major world class health care facilities of the San Jose area..

A little further along we came to our Hotel, Mirador del Mar at Esterillos where we stayed for 2 nights. This was our first time here as a guest.  We have been recommending this place for some time now and mainly because we like the quality, tranquility and the excellent pricing for our clients. We look for this so our people get a real feel for the Costa Rica benefits and not just experience the pricy tourist places and prices.

What a great place and was it ever relaxing. Accompanying me were my wife Karla, daughter Claudia, son Adrian and granddaughter Faviana of 2 years.

The luxury of this 10 room charming Hotel is incomparable.  The beds and room decorations ranked with some of the best on the coast. The rooms all had large quality TV’s and satellite channels with movie rentals if you cared to.  The ocean view was stupendous and the breeze delicious. My wife commented that it gave you a feeling of being your home with the spacious rooms, nice beds and bed coverings, sitting room in a common area with ocean views. 

Activities abound if you want to do more than just lounge around. Five wonderful beaches very near including Esterillos east, central and west. Playa Hermosa, the famous surf beach is only 10 minutes away and Jaco Beach 15 minutes, To the south is the most visited area of Costa Rica, Manuel Antonio with it’s very famous National Park. En route, you can stop and see one of the most pristine areas and beaches starting at Palo Seco and on down.  The Hotel has a whole host of recommendations that you can book right there as well.

After checking in, we decided to check out the beach which was 5 minutes exactly by car. It was Sunday and we had some company, about 35 people and beach as far as you could see. Later we had lunch at a small but very popular restaurant that served a varied menu.  My family liked it so well we returned for dinner that night and it was equally good. Dinner for four was $30.00 for the four of us and the two year old.  Adults had drinks.

The next day we visited another beach about 10 minutes away and enjoyed it as well.  We found a very popular small secluded restaurant in the small Pueblo for dinner that night. It is called Los Almendros owned and operated by a very nice lady called Karen. It is tucked away in an area that is very unsuspecting but once you enter, you know this is different and truly, it was. We all enjoyed our meals, the service of the staff and the ambiance, be it humble. We had a varied menu that included Cerviche and main course and the total bill came to less than $50.00. Eighty five percent of the clientele that night were north Americans living in the area.

 
The next night we decided to  live it up like tourists and went  to a popular restaurant of the area that is frequented by tourists.  We had 3 orders of spaghetti and meat sauce, one Corbina (the local fish), 2 deserts, 2 cocktails and 3 fruit punches for a total of $85.000. Not a gourmet dinner but pricy nevertheless for what we ordered. If we ordered steak or seafood for all, It would have been in excess of $100.00.  My point is not to put down the expensive restaurant as they have their place for sure, but for the people desiring retirement, a simple way of life in nice small and quaint areas, we  don’t want you to be scared off by the tourist prices you pay when visiting here.

Locations for Costa Rica Retirement are determined by the lifestyle, personal needs and budgets.  The Costa Rica central Pacific has some prime locations and great options.  One has to be careful that the touristy places don’t interfere with your decision making process.

I wrote this because we bring people to Costa Rica very frequently and use our Lifestyle Property Tours to fully acquaint them with all aspects of living here.  We try to identify the time you wish to allow for touring properties and fill that time up to the fullest with everything that matches your profile from our database and our associates in the areas of interest.  Mixed with that we like to show you places like we mentioned above so really have a feel for what you can expect.

I am aware that so many people come here and never experience what I just described. After all, that was a vacation too and if you can do it comfortably, find the neat little places, save few bucks and enjoy it to no end, then do it.

We are Costa Rica Retirement Vacation Properties, we do Lifestyle Property Tours and do them very well and do them every day of our lives.

Note:  Even if you are coming just for a vacation, call me, Robert, toll free at 1 888 581 1786 and get our special rate at the Mirador del Mar

PS:  The owner has just recently encountered some health problems and has this beautiful property for sale. It featues 10 beautiful rooms inlcuding a penthouse residence. The land is an engineers dream as it has many areas for expansion for at least 30 more units. Contact me for more on this at 1 888 581 1786 . 
See Hotel here