We don’t make it a habit to review inns with only five rooms, but we made an exception for this luxury home turned small hotel in the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. Latitude 10 is small, yes, and as with many resorts in Costa Rica, you are asked to sweat a bit for the sake of our planet’s future: no air conditioning here.

That’s part of what makes Costa Rica such a special place though, unmatched by pretty much any other destination on Earth except perhaps Bhutan. Here, taking care of the environment is not just some greenwashing slogan the PR people trot out to evoke an image of responsibility. Here most “green” resorts really are.

Latitude 10 is tucked into the foliage in a spot that’s easy to miss, with its own stretch of hidden beach running alongside it. And even if the resort is close to empty, you won’t be alone:

Wildlife is abundant: birds perch in the forest canopy; howler monkeys bellow; and iguanas scurry along tree trunks. Guests can breathe in the outdoors from cushioned wicker furniture decorated in earth tones and wooden tables with views to a salt water pool and the rolling Pacific surf.

All the suites here are private casitas and they come with a soundtrack of the rolling surf outside.

See our full review of Latitude 10 in Costa Rica and for other sustainable upscale lodging, check out our detailed reports on luxury hotels in Costa Rica. You can book some of them, including Latitude 10, through the the Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality group.

Although luxury real estate is by nature expensive in any country, there can be a huge variance from place to place. I had a bizarre juxtaposition illustration of this a couple weeks ago when I watched two House Hunters International shows back to back. In the first, a couple was looking for a beachfront home in Ecuador. All three choices were fabulous and all were under $200,000. The next show I watched had a couple looking for a French home in Provence. Their budget was $1.2 million and every place was a fixer-upper dump. Once didn’t even have a bathroom!

Most of Latin America falls somewhere near the bargain end of that scale. Apart from a few exceptions like Rio de Janeiro and maybe Santiago, what you get for your money is going to be a better value than what you could find in the U.S. or Canada when it comes time to buy a luxury vacation home or a retirement home. Sometimes a much better value.

Apart from real estate though, what’s it really cost to live in these places? Answering that question is not as simple, but International Living is doing its best to help. They have just released a series of detailed budgets which give a break-down of all the major outgoings on a monthly basis in some of the world’s favorite overseas retirement hotspots.

All of them are places we cover here in Luxury Latin America: Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Ecuador and Roatan in Honduras.

They include information on things like rent, utilities, entertainment, health care and groceries, as well as tips and pointers on how to make retirees’ money stretch further.

“Most of us think about living the good life abroad but things rarely develop beyond a daydream,” said International Living magazine editor Eoin Bassett. “Resources like this can help equip readers with the information they need to bring those dreams to reality.”

The figures were put together by International Living contributors on the ground in each of the seven retirement hotspots, so this info is much more reliable than what you’ll find in a Mercer cost of living study, for instance.

“This 4,000-plus word article is a massively useful tool for anyone considering retirement overseas,” added Eoin. “But it’s really just one among many must-read resources we provide on everything from budgeting for a life abroad and buying a beachside bargain property, to getting the best deal on dental treatment or setting up a small business.”

I’m a subscriber to International Living and think it’s well worth the money. This report is free though. You can see the entire article here: Seven Easy, Affordable Retirement Spots.

Our latest tour feature, posted last week, is on getting away from the routine bus tours of Costa Rica and getting up close to the country’s abundant birds and animals on a more intimate basis. See the full story here: A Wealth of Wildlife in Costa Rica.

Fortunately, it’s easy to set up an exclusive experience in Costa Rica by setting up a custom tour with the likes of Geographic Expeditions or Mead Brown Vacation Villa Rentals. Or by staying at the best luxury jungle lodges in the country and using Nature Air to get from place to place.

Costa Rica is green, lush, and teeming with life. The government has done a far better job here than in most other countries of preserving green spaces with ample room for animals to roam. Plus some private owners, such as those at Lapa Rios, have bought huge tracts of land and left them alone so nature could take its course. It’s a breath of fresh air, figuratively and literally.

Back in December I spent a couple weeks traveling through Costa Rica. There’s an adventure tour story on the way and I added a few new hotels—see the Costa Rica category of this blog for links to those. But I also took some time to revisit some luxury hotel favorites and revamp older reviews.

For all the following, you will now find updated and expanded reviews, plus some new and better photos I shot while I was there. If you’re headed to Costa Rica anytime soon, I assure you that you can’t go wrong with any of these three fine resorts in Guanacaste, San Jose, and the Osa Peninsula.

The Four Seasons Costa Rica is in a class all its own. A high-end luxury resort with its own unbelievably scenic golf course. Two beaches, stunning views, a great pool complex, and one of the hardest-working executive chefs in the country.

If you travel to San Jose and want to stay in the city, Grano de Oro is a perfectly fine hotel. You can be just as close to the airport though at Xandari and feel like you’re in a real resort, with a hillside of plants, waterfall hikes, and a great infinity pool with a view. If you like color and personality in your hotel, you will fall in love with this artist-owned place and wish you’d booked a few more nights there.

Lapa Rios wrote the book on sustainable upscale jungle lodges and this pioneer is still hard to beat when it comes to communing with nature while enjoying guilt-free luxury lodging. I was blown away by the views and the abundant wildlife, plus there aren’t many lodges anywhere that have 1,000 acres of their own jungle surrounding their bungalows. Lapa Rios caters to couples, friends, and families equally well and it offers an experience you’ll remember for a lifetime.

After my December trip to Costa Rica, in the monthly newsletter I ragged on the international airport in San Jose as being a place with nothing to do but shop and eat American fast food. True, I didn’t have to spend two hours in the immigration line upon arrival like I did on my first visit a few years earlier, but it amazed me that the place has no bar and no sit-down restaurant.

Mead Brown Vacation Rentals replied back that they’ve got a solution to all this for upscale travelers. Starting now, anyone who rents a villa or condo through them receives complimentary passes to the VIP lounge at the airport. This is a big deal because even if you have elite status on an American airline or are carrying a platinum card from American Express, you can’t get in to the one and only VIP lounge in the whole terminal. (If you have Priority Pass though, this lounge is in the network.)

As the announcement stated, “Complimentary access through Mead Brown is particularly valuable because—in spite of the wide spectrum of airlines that now serve Costa Rica’s capital city—none of the major North American airlines has a dedicated VIP lounge.”

So for most foreign visitors, this is a benefit they could not get in any other way except buying a day pass. Believe me that unless you want to spend two hours buying coffee and duty free liquor, this will make your San Jose airport time fly by much more quickly.

To see what they have to offer, browse Costa Rica rental properties here or see our interview with Michael Brown.