A while back I put up a post on this blog about the eco-friendly resort that really walks the walk, Playa Nicuesa. On the gulf that runs between the mainland and the Osa Peninsula, this is an adventure resort with a conscious and one that offers a great mix of water and jungle activities.

Now our full rundown is posted and you can see it here: review of Playa Nicuesa in Costa Rica.

We’re also in the midst of adding more Costa Rica luxury hotels and those will be up this month as well. Subscribe to our RSS feed or our monthly newsletter if you want to see when they go live.

I also spent a few days at the hotel that must be at the top of the list when talking about luxury in this country, the Four Seasons Costa Rica. So I’ve updated our review with more details and adding some more photos to make you salivate—especially if it’s below freezing where you are right now.

There plenty of tasteful, comfortable, eco-friendly luxury hotels in Costa Rica, so the competition is stiff to get your attention. Rancho Pacifico manages to stand out, however, and attracts plenty of guests who can afford to stay anywhere they want. Where else does the restaurant’s bathroom wall have thank-you notes from Sheryl Crow, Anderson Cooper, and Al Gore?

Rancho Pacifico has a whole lot going for it, which you can read in detail by clicking on the photo above or the full review link at the end. The big main draw, however, is the unbelievable location. Perched on a steep mountainside with the “Whale’s Tale” point extending into the Pacific Ocean down below, it’s a panoramic view that only a few other places can compete with.

This is not just a kick-back-and-admire-the-view spot though. The villas are surrounded by 250 acres of private jungle reserve, filled with all kinds of wildlife and teeming with birds. I saw hummingbirds, monkeys, and agoutis while out for a hike to the waterfall pictured here. I checked out toucans, hawks, and a hummingbird without even leaving the restaurant deck.

There’s a whole story behind the careful construction of this hotel and the individual rooms and cabins here are quite architecturally interesting. Thankfully for a place reached by four-wheel drive, the food and cocktails are excellent too. To get the full scoop, check out our review of Rancho Pacifico in Costa Rica.

After leaving Playa Nicuesa I puttered across the Golfo Dulce to Puerto Jiminez and bumped my way up to Lapa Rios, this time with my wife and daughter with me. They flew in on Nature Air via San Jose, which is pretty painless considering how remote and wild this area is. It’s a rough road from there to the resort, but you soon forget all that.

Lapa Rios opened two decades ago as one of the pioneer eco-resorts in Costa Rica (and thus the world), showing that you could actually get luxury travelers to make a few sacrifices if you backed it up with a fantastic experience and good food. This is a sustainable lodge on 1,000 acres of jungle—much of it primary rainforest—but with a pool, full bar, hot showers, and comfy beds.

The rooms have terrific views of the canopy and the sea, but the main reason to come here is to interact with nature in some of the best-preserved jungle in Central America. I just popped in a few photos here to give a taste: a white-faced capuchin monkey, a toucan, and a snake spotted on a night hike we took with a guide. I won’t bore you with the whole slideshow, but we saw coatis, agoutis, hawks, spider monkeys, a coral snake, and too much more to even list. One day we spotted five different animals and birds just between the bungalow and breakfast.

I’ll be updating our review of Lapa Rios in the next couple weeks, but the bottom line is, this resort still lives up to the hype. Every guest I talked to was thrilled that they came there, which just about says it all.

You might notice a lag in posts on this luxury travel blog these days as I’m spending much of my time traveling through Costa Rica. My Osa Peninsula time has been almost totally off the grid. Is “going offline” the new luxury status update? I’m starting to think so as the guests I’ve been hanging out at these places are certainly more relaxed that your average vacationer who still has one foot back home.

One new eco-resort we’ll soon be adding to our Costa Rica hotels section is Playa Nicuesa, which is hands-down the most sustainable lodge I’ve been to that’s actually quite comfortable as well.

Running an eco-lodge in Costa Rica is like trying to run a brewpup in Colorado or a winery in Napa Valley: it almost qualifies as a competitive sport. Playa Nicuesa is the real deal though: minimal concrete, wood from sustainable trees, solar and biofuel power, and no power-sucking TVs. Heck, they don’t even use dryers for the linens: sheets and towels go into a passive solar drying room to let nature do its work. Anything that can be composted is composted and vendors must provide goods in reusable containers and baskets—no plastic bags.

You might not even notice all this though because the setting is so fantastic and there is so much wildlife around. Across the Gulfo Dulce from Puerto Jiminez in the Osa Peninsula, the resort can only be reached by boat. There’s a rocky black sand beach out front, a jungle in the back, and a river nearby that’s great for kayaking. Here’s an edited version of what I saw in just two days: wild pigs, agoutis, coatis, a baby crocodile, three kinds of monkeys, herons, lizards, tiny frogs, dolphins, and a sea turtle. Two days!

This resort may not be for everyone. You eat at set times at a long communal table (great food, by the way) and you are well off the grid here, so it’s not for those addicted to either privacy or social media. For nature lovers trying to keep their environmental impact to a minimum, it’s paradise.

Watch for our review in a few weeks.

Sometimes I have the tough job of hitting the road to update our hotel reviews that are a few years old and seeing what’s new at the top resorts in Latin America. This week I arrived at the Four Seasons Costa Rica in the northern part of the country and was wowed from the start. The top picture is a view from the balcony of one of the villas. Nice view with your morning coffee, right? Especially when colorful parrots are flying by and monkeys are swinging through the trees.

On the way in, you realize what a terrific piece of real estate this resort has, on the Papagayo Peninsula, with water views to both sides. The golf course has water views from 14 of 18 holes, like this:

When you get to your suite, there will be some kind of goodies waiting for you, like maybe set-ups to make a couple monitas, like this:

Or if you’re paying the big bucks for the largest suite or one of the homes for rent, you might find what’s pictured below waiting for you: an edible coral reef made of chocolate.

Four Seasons Costa Rica seems to impress most everyone that passes through its gates, including travelers like me who think they’ve seen it all. Stay tuned for more…

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