I’ve had some of the best moments with my family right here. Moments we’ll cherish for a lifetime. Like taking my daughter swimming in the ocean for the first time and catching dozens upon dozens of fish with my Dad while on a deep sea excursion.

And some of the worst moments too.

But don’t waste your time. Playa Flamingo is for vacation, couples, and families. If that’s not you, then there’s not much reason to visit here — especially with how expensive it is.

If it is you…

Then hear me out — Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica is one of the best small beach towns for families and retirees in Latin America.

🇨🇷 Playa Flamingo, Guanacaste 🇨🇷

Population:

15,000-ish across the greater Flamingo corridor (Las Catalinas to Huacas), spanning the Cabo Velas and Tempate districts. That number swells significantly in high season with snowbirds, short-term renters, and tourists.

Weather:

Classic tropical dry climate. December through April is bone-dry with daily highs around 33°C (91°F). May through November brings afternoon downpours but greener landscapes and lower prices. Expect heat and humidity year-round.

How to Get to Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica

One of the reasons Playa Flamingo has become such a popular tourist spot?

There’s direct flights to the USA, Canada, and even…Switzerland.

You fly into Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR) in Liberia — the closest international airport and by far the best option.

From the airport, Playa Flamingo is just a 60-90 minute drive south. Rental cars, private shuttles, and shared transfers are all readily available at the terminal.

You can also fly into San José (SJO), but that adds a 4.5-hour drive or a domestic connecting flight — skip it if you can.

Here’s a sampling of a few nonstop routes into LIR:

• Miami (MIA) — American Airlines, year-round

• Houston (IAH) — United Airlines, year-round

• Atlanta (ATL) — Delta, year-round

• Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) — American Airlines, year-round

• Toronto (YYZ) — Air Canada, WestJet, Porter, year-round

• Los Angeles (LAX) — Alaska Airlines, year-round

• Chicago (ORD) — American & United, seasonal

• Denver (DEN) — United & Southwest, year-round

• Fort Lauderdale (FLL) — JetBlue, year-round

• New York (JFK) — American & JetBlue, seasonal

• Zürich (ZRH) — Edelweiss Air, seasonal

Now…

Of course, you can drive to Guanacaste from anywhere in Costa Rica. If you’re already in the country, you’ll probably do this. I’ve made that treacherous drive damn near a dozen times at this point.

Yes, driving in Costa Rica sucks. But if you’re in the country with a car, it makes sense.

There’s also a prop plane route from San Jose to Tamarindo (20-minutes away), which I’ve done a number of times too. Quick and convenient, but not exactly comfortable.

The only missing route to LIR in my opinion? Panama City, Panama.

A Panama City direct would connect Playa Flamingo with the rest of Latin America, which would be convenient for those traveling throughout the region.

I think they’re trying to avoid that, however ;(

Why Visit Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica?

The Playa Flamingo area is the rare LatAm beach destination that feels upscale without feeling overbuilt. You’ve got a true white sand beach, a brand-new marina, luxury homes in gated communities — but no high-rises cluttering the views, no Cancún spring break energy.

Think polished but still 100% Costa Rica.

But why? Why would you visit Playa Flamingo? Before we dive deep into that, it’s worth mentioning who the area is ideal for…

• Families

• Retirees

• Couples

If you fall into any of those groups and love the beach, then Playa Flamingo might be a good spot for a vacation or three.

Here’s why:

• One of the only true white-sand beaches on Costa Rica’s entire Pacific coast — most others are brown or volcanic

• Calm, swimmable water that’s safe for kids — no intense rip currents like Tamarindo

• Full-service marina with world-class sportfishing, sunset sailing, and diving at the Catalinas Islands

• Just 60-90 minutes from Liberia International Airport (LIR) with year-round nonstop flights from a dozen North American cities

• Brasilito, Conchal, Potrero, Las Catalinas, and Tamarindo all within 15–30 minutes — an entire coastline at your fingertips

• Sufficient infrastructure — grocery stores, pharmacy, bank, restaurants

• Upscale but not overbuilt — luxury homes and condos, no high-rise sprawl

• Bone-dry from December to April with near-guaranteed sunshine every day

• Reserva Conchal and its Westin all-inclusive, golf course, and resort amenities are right next door

• Development boom attracting investors and relocators to a market that was frozen for 20 years

• Central enough to day-trip all over — volcano hikes, waterfalls, world-class surf, leatherback turtle nesting, and some of the best diving in Central America within striking distance

P.S: As you can see — if you don’t like the beach, there’s no reason for you to come here. At all. Nada.

Where to Stay in Playa Flamingo?

Think of the Playa Flamingo area less as a single town and more as a string of beach communities, each with its own character, all within a 15-minute drive of each other.

Wherever you base yourself shapes the experience (and greatly influences the costs) — here's how each spot stacks up:

Playa Flamingo

Playa Flamingo "proper" is a tiny, tiny town. You've got the beach, the marina, a few hotels, some villas/condos, and a dozen or so restaurants and bars.

And to be honest, that's kinda the charm — it's an upscale area without being overdeveloped.

Most stays are vacation rental villas and condos in the surrounding hills with ocean views and private pools. If you want a white sand beach, a brand new marina, and everything within walking distance without the noise and nightlife chaos, this is the spot.

But you’ll pay for it…

Lodging here is limited due to regulations. There’s only one big resort or hotel located in Playa Flamingo proper:

• Margaritaville Beach Resort Playa Flamingo

But the lack of inventory isn’t the only reason it’s expensive here.

The other reason? Playa Flamingo is consistently ranked among the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica — a country known worldwide for its beaches.

And for families thinking beyond a vacation…CRIA and La Paz Community School are both under 10 minutes away.

Reserva Conchal

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Two young kids in tow, but that didn’t slow us down. We’d been enjoying the beaches, hiking to waterfalls, and exploring the countryside — from Nuevo Arenal to La Fortuna to Monteverde.

But we wanted something a bit more upscale for a weekend, a fancy “staycation” so to speak.

So we booked an Airbnb at a resort about half an hour away. Beachfront, luxurious, laid back.

As the weekend rolled in, we packed a couple backpacks and hopped in the car for the short drive. We checked into the apartment using a code from the host on Airbnb, immediately got our stuff organized, and then started putting swimsuits on the kids.

It was time for the beach, as sunset was but a few hours away.

Disaster strikes…

Once the offspring were beach ready, we brought the double-stroller out of the Airbnb. We had to lift it up a few stairs. Then my girl began putting one of the kids in the stroller.

I thought she had our other daughter as well.

So I begin finding the code from Airbnb to lock the door and once I have it, I immediately shut the door and lock it.

Then I hear it…

A deafening scream from a child. It sounds like my child.

The scream startles me. I turn around to see my 18-month old with her thumb caught in the door.

She’s jerking around, screaming bloody murder in pain.

I try to calm her down and open the door, but as I try to control her, the thumb completely rips from the door. Blood starts shooting everywhere.

My daughter looks down at her thumb and starts panicking, panting as she’s breathing, in between screams of pain. Tears flowing down her face.

I’m in shock.

But there’s no time for delay. I take my shirt off and instantly cover her thumb, put pressure on it — as I pick her up.

My girl is behind me with our other daughter now — equally terrified and in shock. I’m trying to tell her to put pressure on around my daughter’s arm so she doesn’t lose anymore blood, but it’s not translating.

What the fuck do we do here?! I’m lost, we just got to this Airbnb.

We start sprinting towards the front of the resort. I’m screaming for help in Spanish and English.

My daughter is losing a lot of blood.

We find a security guard who instantly calls a medic on-staff in the resort. They show up within 2-minutes and instantly begin checking her out. Super fast response time. Gracias a dios!

The medics open the wound to see it. People start to get lightheaded, my girl grabs my arm to not fall over. There’s blood going everywhere.

You can see the bone in her thumb.

She needs to get to the hospital and quick. Luckily, the resort has a car for this with a police light on top.

My girl takes our hurt daughter and goes in that car, directly to the hospital, about 30 minutes away. I get our car from the resort with our other daughter and put the pedal to the metal to catch up.

I didn’t know this at the time, but my daughter kept passing out from blood loss on the way to the hospital. My girl kept having to wake her up by singing nursery rhymes and asking her if she wanted ice cream.

My girl told me this a few days later, more on that below.

Rural hospitals in Costa Rica…

I finally get to the hospital.

“Hospital” might be a bit generous, there’s like two rooms and some equipment. It’s a small spot.

I see my daughter is already there, she looks ok, they’re cleaning her thumb in the emergency room. The bleeding has almost stopped, but she’s missing a big chunk of her thumb — like 25% of her thumb is gone. We can still see the bone.

I rush over to hug her, just happy that she’s breathing fine and not in panic.

The doctors begin filling me in. The rural hospital doesn’t have what she needs. Not even close. We have to get her to San Jose, the capital, tonight. She needs an emergency reconstructive surgery ASAP.

I immediately ask, “Ok, do I drive? How quick do we need to get her there?”

The doctors look at me, “NOOO! She needs to have medical support with her until she gets into surgery, you need to do a MedEvac. Do you have insurance?”

I did.

So I begin fumbling through my phone, hands still shaking from adrenaline and shock. I find my insurance, call them up, it includes MedEvac coverage.

I start speaking with the front desk at the rural hospital, trying to figure out how to get the MedEvac team here ASAP.

They take my insurance and begin processing the claim with my provider, but the front desk attendant leans over, “This is going to take 3-4 hours to get pre-approval. Or you can pay upfront via this link and the MedEvac team will be here in 30 minutes.”

Me: “How much is it?!”

$10,000 USD upfront.

Me: “Give me the link and call the MedEvac team to come ASAP”

$10,000 bucks is a good chunk of change, but there was no way I was waiting 3-4 hours with my daughter in dire need of medical care immediately.

I put it on the credit card and begged the front desk attendant to get the MedEvac team here as fast as she could. She immediately called them and we were told it’ll take 30-minutes for them to arrive.

MedEvac is a MUST…

The 30-minute wait felt like an eternity, but finally the MedEvac team arrives.

They start explaining what needs to happen…

It’s too dark now, so a helicopter is not an option. We have to drive to the Liberia International Airport and take a plane to San Jose, Costa Rica.

We all pile into the ambulance, my daughter gets hooked up to all the machines. She’s stable now, not losing more blood, not panicking. Gracias a Dios!

We speed off into the night, darting through one-lane roads.

This may have been the only calming part of the whole ordeal. The MedEvac team was incredible. They were caring for my daughter, keeping her calm, laughing with her, and explaining the whole situation to her mother and me in a soothing manner.

We get to the airport within an hour and there’s no brakes. The ambulance speeds onto the runway, directly next to the plane. It’s already open and ready, waiting for us to take off with the quickness.

We load my daughter onto the plane and hop in. We’re off the ground in less than 5-minutes. Unsurprisingly, MedEvac flights take priority over everything else at the airport.

The flight is smooth.

The medics are comforting and my daughter is about as calm as she could be in this situation. She’s got a huge bandage on her thumb and hand, which she keeps trying to take off because she’s two years old and doesn’t know any better.

We get to San Jose, the capital, and there’s another ambulance and team of medics waiting for us as we land.

We hop into this ambulance and speed off to the hospital. There’s a reconstructive surgeon waiting for us as we arrive.

Horrific memories…

We arrive at the new hospital.

The surgeon is there. He starts explaining what needs to happen next. He needs to see the wound, then we have to get her on an IV.

The nurses start attending to my daughter as I hold her. They begin taking her bandage off and my daughter starts to panic. I have to hold her down as she screams while they take the bandage off.

It’s not easy, but they finally get off the bandage and she somewhat calms down.

The surgeon takes a look.

The thumb was missing a huge chunk of skin, but there’s no damage to the bone or ligaments.

My daughter would need two reconstructive surgeries over the course of a week.

The first one would be at 6:00AM this morning, as that was the earliest the anesthesiologist could make it. It was around 3:00AM currently.

The surgeon and nurses leave us alone, as we move to a separate room in the hospital. My one daughter can’t stop sniffling from all the crying and pain. We do our best to calm her. Our other daughter is one-year-old, hasn’t slept all night, and is crying.

I find a hotel nearby and book it for 10-days.

Then the nurses come back. They give me a look of concern and basically say, “This is going to suck.”

What was going to suck?

I’d have to hold my daughter completely still, while they jab a needle into her arm for the IV. Finding a child’s veins is apparently tough. This was going to be painful for her.

I hold her tight, so she cannot move at all. The nurses take her arm, working to find a vein, and attempt to jab the needle in.

My daughter screams bloody murder. Blood-curdling screaming. I can still remember it to this day.

It took all the strength in my body to try and hold her still. She was doing everything in her power to escape, while screaming and crying as loud as she could.

The nurses looked at me after the first attempt, “We missed the vein. We’re going to have to do it again.”

I yelled at them in an aggressive manner, “NO! You are not. Go find someone else that can do it properly.”

They look shocked. Confused as to why I’m pissed.

But finally, they go and find the head of staff, who says she can do it properly in one try. Ok, do it.

I hold my daughter down again. She already knows what’s about to happen again. She’s screaming again. Crying. Panicking.

I’m at my breaking point, but I know my daughter needs me to stay upbeat, positive. So I hide the emotion. I hold her down tight. I talk to her softly.

This nurse gets the IV in perfectly this time around.

I put on a smile for my daughter. Talk to her softly, try to make her laugh. After calming down, she falls asleep for a few hours.

But I can’t relax.

I keep replaying holding my daughter down twice as she screams bloody murder, desperately trying to escape from my arms, doing anything she can to avoid the pain.

The look on her face — pure fear, pain, and confusion. Unable to understand why Daddy, one of the only people in the world she can trust, is holding her down and not allowing her to escape the pain.

Just a horrific memory I will never, ever be able to forget.

Time for surgery…

A few hours pass, as my daughters get some sleep in our hospital room.

I’d been researching what happens when a young child has to go under via anesthesia. There’s some risk involved. It’s stressing me out. Oh, and we’re in Costa Rica, a developing country, in a hospital I’d never been to or heard of before.

The surgeon comes back at 6:00AM sharp.

Only one parent can go with a child into the operating room. My girl goes with our daughter, while I stay with our younger one in the lobby.

At this point, I’m tweaking. The adrenaline is still kicking, but my energy is low. I’m holding my younger daughter as she sleeps, while praying that the surgery goes well and checking my phone damn near every minute for an update from my girl.

About two-hours later, I get a message that everything went well and she is awake again. Gracias a dios!

I take a deep, deep sigh of relief — and thank the Lord.

My daughter comes out of surgery and she’s in better spirits. Her thumb has a huge bandage on it.

But the first surgery was a success.

She has another one in six days, but for now, it’s time to rest. The doctor says to do nothing with the bandage until the next surgery. Don’t let it get wet and don’t take it off.

We go to the hotel.

Everyone passes out the minute we get to the room. We sleep all day and night, only waking up to order some food — and then passing out again.

The following afternoon, there’s finally a calm moment.

My daughters are napping. My girl and I have our first moments to talk about what had just happened and decompress.

I hadn’t broken down at this point.

My daughters had been crying throughout the whole ordeal. My girl broke down in tears multiple times from the stress.

Somehow I had managed to stay strong during our crisis.

Then as we’re talking, my girl goes:

“Yes, she kept passing out from the blood loss on our drive to the hospital. I had to sing to her and tell her we’d get ice cream to keep her awake. It happened 3-4 times.”

My jaw dropped.

When I realized she could have died from the blood loss, I couldn’t contain the emotions any longer.

I just looked at my girl and grabbed a room key.

I had no response. I had to go. I was going to break down. I could feel the tears starting to build. I needed to be alone.

I went to the public bathroom in the lobby of the hotel. I locked the stall. I cried like a baby for 10-15 minutes. All the emotions from the past 48-hours came out here.

In that moment, I was a grown ass man who had to cry and let that shit out. So I did. In private.

My kids didn’t see it. My girl didn’t see it.

I’m not ashamed of it. In that moment, it had to happen. I needed it.

Gracias a Dios…

To make a long story slightly shorter:

The surgeon did a fantastic job. The Costa Rican hospital in San Jose was fantastic.

My daughter’s thumb is fine these days. She has a couple scars, it looks slightly different, but there’s no permanent damage.

She’s a healthy, happy kid — with two fully functional thumbs.

The whole ordeal felt like we danced around disaster and barely made it out alive. Literally and figuratively.

And to this day…

When I look back on this situation, I find myself thanking the Lord that nothing worse happened to my first-born child during this disaster. That she’s still here with me today. That I get to see her grow up.

Gracias a Dios!

The country got the best of me. Sucked me in. Then spit me out, brittled and bruised.

See what had happened was…

One of my companies was cooking. We’d seen a 400% increase in revenue over the prior 12-months and things looked to continue upwards.

Then we got punched in the mouth.

Our main vendor stopped paying us, threatened to sue us, etc. It took a full month of daily Mexican Modafinil to switch up our vendors and avoid a lawsuit.

The stress was overwhelming. Weekly all-nighters to make sure things got done. Work that would normally take my team 3-4 months, all condensed in one.

And on top of all that jazz, I had two kids in the house — 6- and 18-months old. Two babies, business stress, and a missus who I’d been ignoring while working all damn day and night.

So we decided to book a 5-week trip to Costa Rica. Seemed like an ideal way to unwind and shed some stress.

It was.

We spent a magical month traveling throughout Costa Rica. Lago Arenal, La Fortuna, Playa Flamingo, Tamarindo, and of course San Jose metro area (Santa Ana specifically).

The whole family loved it. We didn’t want to leave. Fast-forward a few months later and we’d booked another 2-month trip to Costa Rica.

That trip led to me spending over 15-months in the country with my family, buying real estate, and planning to base up in Costa Rica long-term.

Then the Costa Rica 🇨🇷 Conundrum™ reared its ugly head.

While Costa Rica is easily one of the best places to vacation in all of Latin America, actually living in the country is a different beast entirely.

Ask any real estate agent in Guanacaste why the vast majority of gringos end up moving back home within 2-years of moving to Costa Rica.

The “Pura Vida” Promise: What Costa Rica Gets Right

“Pura Vida” gets thrown around so much you’d think it’s just a bumper sticker for tourist shuttles.

Surprisingly, it’s not.

I spent 15+ months in this country and can tell you — it is how Ticos actually operate. The cashier at the AutoMercado, the guy fixing your flat tire on the side of the road in Guanacaste, the abuela selling mangoes outside the school. There’s a warmth and ease to daily interactions that I haven’t felt many other places.

As a long-time expat buddy told me, “Pura Vida actually means something to the local people here.” He’s right.

Then there’s the nature, which is frankly absurd.

Costa Rica makes up 0.03% of Earth’s landmass but contains roughly 5% of the world’s species — over 500,000 of them. Highest biodiversity density of any country on the planet.

Caribbean coast on one side, Pacific on the other. Active volcanoes popping out of the earth like God just got bored. Cloud forests in Monteverde that feel like another dimension. Surfing on both coasts. Pristine beaches backed by mountains so green they look AI-generated. They’re not. It’s just Costa Rica.

Now, safety.

The stats have gotten worse — no sugarcoating that. The homicide rate jumped from a stable ~11 per 100K to 16.6 per 100K in 2024, nearly all of it drug-trafficking related.

That said, in 15+ months living there with my family, I never once felt unsafe. The areas where expats actually live — Santa Ana, Escazú, Guanacaste beach towns, Arenal — are calm. The violence is concentrated in port cities like Limón and specific urban zones, not in your gated community in Playa Flamingo.

What sealed it for my family was the practical stuff. At least, that’s what we told ourselves.

Costa Rica is compact — you’re 90 minutes from San Jose to the beach. Two hours to a volcano. Three to a cloud forest. The minimal language barrier helps too. Years of tourism have made English widely spoken, which matters if your Spanish is non-existent, like many of the gringos in the country.

International schools are solid and diverse — kids from everywhere, not just American compounds. There’s even solid international schools in some of the beach towns, like this one.

Oh, and it’s a 4-hour flight to the USA. Practical. Easy.

The Hidden Advantages: Taxes, Healthcare, and Lifestyle

Costa Rica runs a territorial tax system under Law No. 7092 — only income earned inside Costa Rica is taxed. Your US-based consulting revenue, your foreign rental properties, your investment portfolio — Costa Rica doesn’t touch any of it.

For Europeans, Canadians, and Australians without a worldwide taxation system chasing them around the globe, this can mean paying effectively zero income tax on foreign earnings.

For Americans, you still owe Uncle Sam (you always owe Uncle Sam), but the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion covers up to $130K and Costa Rica won’t be double-dipping on top of that. It’s not as clean as Panama or Paraguay for pure tax optimization, but for most expats earning remotely, it gets the job done.

Healthcare in the San Jose metro is good. Really good. CIMA Hospital in Escazú has been JCI-accredited six consecutive times since 2008, carries the Pathway to Excellence nursing certification (only private hospital in Central America with it), and has 800+ physicians across 60+ specialties. Bilingual staff. No wait times for international patients. Procedures run 30-50% cheaper than the US.

Clínica Bíblica and Clínica Católica are also JCI-accredited, giving the metro area three internationally certified hospitals — more than most Latin American capitals. Many of the specialists have trained in the US, Europe, or Chile. If you need serious medical care, San Jose delivers.

And it’s not just the hospitals.

The Nicoya Peninsula is one of only five certified Blue Zones on Earth — alongside Okinawa, Sardinia, Ikaria, and Loma Linda. Stanford research found that Nicoyans over 60 are 29% less likely to die than other Costa Ricans the same age.

The average life expectancy there is 85, compared to 77 in the US. The water is mineral-rich in calcium and magnesium, the diet is beans and maize and not much else, and 100-year-olds still ride horses daily.

Something about this country just keeps people alive.

The Infrastructure Nightmare: Traffic and Roads That Make You Question Everything

Let me describe what driving in San Jose is actually like….

You’re on the highway heading into the city. It starts as a reasonable multi-lane road. Then, with zero warning and no signage that would make sense to anyone who has ever designed a road, the lanes compress from something like eight down to two. Just... shrink.

Cars merge in a panicked swarm. There’s a toll booth smack in the middle of it all, because of course there is.

Crashes happen here constantly — and when they do, the entire city locks up.

According to Numbeo’s 2025 data, Costa Rica ranks second in the world for traffic congestion. Second. Behind only Nigeria.

San Jose’s traffic index of 327.8 puts it just behind Lagos. A 15-kilometer trip from the international airport to La Sabana park averages speeds of 15 km/h during peak hours. You could bike faster. You could probably walk faster if you were angry enough.

Get outside the city and it doesn’t get better — it gets different. Two-lane roads with semi-trucks barreling toward you from the opposite direction, lanes so narrow you instinctively pull your mirrors in. No shoulders. Potholes that could swallow a tire.

Yes, I’ve been side swiped by a semi-truck in Costa Rica. Good times.

And then, just when you think you’ve escaped civilization’s traffic problems, you hit the one-lane bridges.

These things are scattered all over rural Costa Rica — even on main routes. You pull up, check if anyone is coming the other direction, play chicken with an oncoming truck, and pray. They create traffic jams in places where there are literally more cows than people. Who approved these?

Genuinely — who signed off on a single-lane bridge on a national route and said “yeah, this’ll work”?

The root cause is that Costa Rica simply cannot build infrastructure. The IMF ranks the country 144th out of 162 in average road speeds. Vehicle density has doubled in the past decade while the road network has barely changed.

Some infrastructure projects have taken up to 60 years to complete. There’s talk of an electric train system. There’s been talk for years. The country that nailed biodiversity conservation and built a strong healthcare system in San Jose just... can’t figure out roads. It’s baffling.

What this means in practice: that “90 minutes from San Jose to the beach” pitch from the previous section? On a Friday afternoon, make it three hours. The drive to Tamarindo that Google Maps says is five hours can stretch to eight if there’s a single accident.

Simple errands — groceries, school pickup, a doctor’s visit — become multi-hour operations if you’re anywhere near the metro area during peak hours, which now bleed into basically all hours. The compact country advantage I mentioned earlier is real, but the traffic takes a serious bite out of it.

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