How do you feel about the color white?

If you’ve spent wonderful vacations on a Greek island or the coast of Turkey, you probably have fond memories of a whitewashed hotel with arches, the blue sea beyond. That’s the look and feel of SUU Hotel Manuel Antonio, a hotel designed to bring a bit of the Turkish owner’s homeland to the tropics of Costa Rica.

It’s a bit strange in this context, especially when you first arrive, but apart from continuing to feel sorry for the maids who have to keep the place spotless, I got used to it and started to like it. I’m sure photographers are going to go ga-ga over the place, so watch for it in future “Hot List” issues and magazine fashion spreads.

Read the full review to see more photos and get a feel for this small luxury hotel, then see if this nice addition to the Manuel Antonio hotel scene is right for you. It’s near Arenas del Mar, on a peninsula removed from the main beach and national park, but it’s a great setting with a view. Add in an excellent restaurant and a nice big pool for lounging and this is a great place to hang and feel fashionable. If you need some help in that respect, don’t worry, the butler will take care of you.

See our full review of SUU Hotel Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica.

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.

I’ve spent the past few days in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, on the Papagayo Peninsula. I’ve hung out with a few other travel editors and some travel agents who handle upscale clients. The one perception issue that keeps coming up is that a lot of people think Costa Rica is remote, or hard to get to.

Some of this you can chalk up to Americans’ notorious ineptitude at geography, but part of it stems from assumptions that used to be true but no longer are. A decade ago you either flew into San Jose or you didn’t fly to the country at all. Now you can fly direct daily to Liberia though on American, Delta, and Continental. Canada Air flies direct, as does TACA from some international destinations. (That’s how I got here, direct from Mexico City.) Here’s a full list of arrivals and departures for Liberia’s airport.

This is not usually a long flight either. It’s four hours from Atlanta, under three hours from Miami. In other words, about the time it would take you to get from the east coast to the west coast or vice-versa.

Then the drive from the airport is not too taxing, around 30-40 minutes to the Four Seasons Costa Rica, for example, on good roads. Many roads in Costa Rica are still god-awful, but the main highway from San Jose to Liberia is good and most of the main ones around Guanacaste are good—they don’t get flooded out as much in the north.

Then after you arrive, there’s this…

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…

Related story: Golf Courses in Costa Rica