Time is running out if you want to score four free nights in a luxury beachfront condo in Costa Rica. It sleeps six, so you can bring plenty of friends or family members along.

It’s our fourth anniversary, so we’re thanking all our readers with four nights in style. It’s a quick hop from where this condo is on Jaco Beach to animals, volcanoes, birds, surf, ziplining, and rafting.

Follow this link to see the details and sign up. It’s only open through the end of May, then we’ll pick a winner and they (or you) can make their reservations through luxury villa rental company Mead Brown.

Enter – 4th birthday condo giveaway

We haven’t run all that many cruising features in Luxury Latin America, partly because many of them are three-week affairs that land in multiple cities in South America. Costa Rica is not so long though, so one of our writers sailed down on a Star Clipper cruise that made multiple stops there. On a real sailing ship.

This is not a cruise ship in the mass-market, floating convention-sized hotel way. Instead it’s a true sailing ship that hosts a maximum of 170 passengers and has a staff-to-guest ratio of 2-to-1. It’s an experience that wins lots of fans—many of the passengers are repeat customers.

This particular cruise was a six-day affair exploring Costa Rica, with multiple excursions guests could choose from a menu of mellow to adventurous. Others hit Nicaragua and Panama.

See the full story here: Cruising on a 21st Century Clipper Ship in Costa Rica.

Several airlines have gone out of business already this year, including Hungary’s national carrier Malev, while American Airlines is in bankruptcy and fighting off takeover bids. In Latin America, however, it’s a different story entirely.

Airlines in Latin America are taking to the skies in increasing numbers. “According to the International Air Transport Association, the region is the fastest-growing airline market in the world, with passenger-demand growth of 10.2% last year, more than double North America’s 4.0%.”

As this article in Barron’s shows, the effect is widespread. Copa Airlines’ revenue is up 30% and traffic is up 22% year-over-year. The merged Avianca and Taca saw a traffic rise of 40% and a tripling of profits. LAN is opening new routes after buying up the #2 carrier in Colombia.

Brazil’s Gol is not looking as healthy, but future prospects are still good. The resource-based economy is doing well and both the World Cup and Olympics are on the way in coming years.

The same writer recently did an interview in the Los Angeles Times with Fabio Vellegas, CEO of AviancaTaca. Check that out for some more insight on that carrier.

So when you pull up flights on your favorite booking engine, make sure it includes these other carriers. Not only are they better-run, they also offer more amenities and better service. I usually find that Vayama.com has the best selection of international carriers.

If you’ve been reading the glossy travel magazines lately, you’ve probably seen them gushing about a new hotel in Chile called Singular Patagonia. It’s the kind of place the art directors at these magazines drool over: a repurposed old factory in a stunning setting, with a great chef at the helm.

Just one problem: most of these editors and art directors are in New York City and they have never set foot in the place. Neither have any of their writers. So they’re basically revamping the press release and passing it off as a recommendation.

Here at Luxury Latin America, we don’t work like that. We’ve got a man on the scene who can swoop in and see if the hype is justified. Our man in Chile is Jimmy Langman, who is also editor of the Patagon Journal. He has written guidebooks and done articles for Newsweek, plus he lives in Chile. So he knows what he’s talking about.

Here’s what he had to say about this strange and beautiful hotel:

The Singular is built on and around a 1915 cold storage plant for processing and exporting frozen meat and wool. After more than 70 years, the Frigorifo Puerto Bories plant closed down and in 1996 was declared a national monument. As Nicolas Sahli, the executive director and owner of The Singular tells it, this plant played an integral part in boosting the sheep farming industry in the region that his own great-grandfather several generations ago, Jose Menendez, helped establish. This industry now informs the cultural identity of Patagonia almost as much as the towering peaks in Torres del Paine.

The public rooms are in the historic sections, including the old slaughterhouse, but the rooms are in a new wing built just for the hotel. So hopefully you won’t be haunted by any ghost sheep.

See our full review here of Singular Patagonia in Chile.

There are some Mexican resort that, if they were in some country between there and Chile, would be one of the main draws. In Mexico, however, there are so many terrific resorts that it’s easy for even a great one to exist so far below the radar that it’s almost a secret.

Sure, Grand Bay Isla Navidad gets a shout-out in U.S. and Canadian travel magazines sometimes, partly because it’s next to a 27-hole golf course, but it probably gets 1/10th the press of places in Los Cabos or Cancun. There’s a good reason for that. The closest city, Manzanillo, isn’t exactly a big airline hub and there are just a few international flights. Sure, you can fly into Puerto Vallarta instead, but then you’ve got three hours or so of driving to get here, on a road that’s often not all that scenic.

So many of Grand Bay’s guests get here another way: by coming in on their own yacht or driving over from Guadalajara. Should you find yourself in Guadalajara, this would be a fine beach break indeed. It’s in a terrific setting on a calm bay, across from a funky town called Barra de Navidad, which you can reach on a 10-peso water taxi. Great food, a terrific pool complex, and plenty to keep you busy should you want to be.

See our full review of Isla Navidad Grand Bay Hotel.