Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, Nomadventure earns from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links (#ad), meaning we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase through a link. We only recommend gear we actually use. Costa Rica Surf Guide: Best Waves for Every Skill Level (Family Tested, Parent Humbled) 14 breaks from mellow beginner beaches to the wave that locals call "the cheese grater" — plus eight years of honest, hard-won knowledge from a family that moved here in 2016 and never quite left Costa Rica. Where the waves are warm, the children are prodigies, and the parents are excellent documentarians of their own failures. 📋 What's in This Guide 1. Why Costa Rica Ruined Us for Other Surf Destinations 2. Beginner Surf Spots (Sandy Bottoms, Patient Instructors) 3. Intermediate Spots (Where Confidence Meets Humility) 4. Advanced Breaks (Approach With Respect and Insurance) 5. When to Go: Seasons ...

Costa Rica to Bocas del Toro with Kids: How to Cross the Sixaola Bridge, Island-Hop to Paradise, and Come Home Slightly Sunburned and Completely Satisfied In which we navigate a pedestrian border crossing over a river, discover that boat taxis are a perfectly acceptable school bus alternative, snorkel in a national marine park, encounter a snake of non-trivial dimensions, and conclude that Panama is best appreciated with tropical fruit, a cold beer, and sufficiently low expectations about the surrounding rubbish situation. The Bocas del Toro archipelago sits on the Caribbean coast of Panama, just across a small bridge over the Rio Sixaola from Costa Rica. In a straight line it's roughly 40 miles from Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. In actual travel time, given that you cross an international border and then board a boat, it takes around three to four hours if things go reasonably well. This is still faster than getting from one side of San José to the other on a Friday afternoon,...

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend gear we actually use. Thanks for supporting Nomadventure! Costa Rica Surf Spots: The Complete Family Guide to Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced Breaks Costa Rica Surf Spots: The Complete Guide to Waves, Wipeouts & Why Our Kids Are Now Better Surfers Than Us In 2016, we made what we thought was a brilliant family decision: pack up and move to Costa Rica for its nature, warm climate, and family-friendly Pura Vida lifestyle. What we didn't anticipate was that our children would immediately become obsessed with surfing while my wife and I remained exactly where we started: firmly planted on our rears in the sand, nursing margaritas and documenting our failures on GoPro. Now, eight years later, our family can't imagine life without surf forecasts dictating our weekends. Somehow, between the escalating ...

Can Kids Go to School in Costa Rica? Real Experience From a Family of Five Short answer: yes — and your kids will probably adapt faster than you do. When we decided to enroll our three sons in Costa Rican public school, I had approximately one thousand questions and exactly zero certainty. None of them spoke Spanish. We had no local connections. The enrollment paperwork was in a language we were still fumbling through with Google Translate and embarrassing optimism. What followed was one of the most unexpectedly smooth experiences of our entire family relocation — and one of the best things we have ever done for our kids. Why We Chose Public School Over International School The easy answer would have been an international or bilingual private school. There are several in Costa Rica, they're accustomed to expat families, and they conduct classes in English. Problem solved. But that felt like moving to Costa Rica and then building a bubble around ourselves. The whole...

Costa Rica to Nicaragua with Kids: Border Crossings, Birthday Volcanoes, a $10 Machete, and What My Boys Learned From Street Kids in Granada In which we cross a militarized border, celebrate a second birthday on an island that sits inside a freshwater lake, buy a machete at a market, and I attempt to feed every street child in Granada. Results: mixed. Nicaragua is not Costa Rica. I say this not as a complaint but as a geographic and cultural observation that will hit you within approximately four minutes of clearing the border. Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948 and has been more or less radiantly peaceful ever since. Nicaragua has had a rather different 20th century, and the presence of soldiers with actual weapons at the crossing was something our boys processed in real time, out loud, in a sustained stream of questions that didn't stop until we were well into the country. It was, in its own way, one of the better history lessons we've ever had as a family — co...