Costa Rica & Nicaragua

Quepos is a town on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast. It’s known as a gateway to Manuel Antonio National Park. The park’s mangroves, lagoons and beach-lined rainforests shelter howler, white-faced and squirrel monkeys. Nearby sandy stretches include Playa Espadilla and Playa Biesanz. Northwest of town, the Damas Island mangrove estuary is home to wildlife including caimans, snakes and iguanas.

San Juan del Sur is a town on Nicaragua’s southwest coast. It’s known for a string of nearby Pacific beaches, such as Maderas Beach, with its strong-breaking waves, and the quieter Marsella Beach. A towering, contemporary Christ of the Mercy statue stands on a cliff above the bay. Near a creek on the outskirts is an ancient petroglyph. South along the coast, olive ridley turtles breed at La Flor Nature Reserve.

The calm waters that gently lap the beautiful serene beach of Playa Panama make it one of the best places to swim and sunbathe in Costa Rica. Swimming is very safe here and it’s a great spot for activities like boating, paddle boarding and kayaking.

Playa Flamingo is one of Costa Rica’s most popular beaches with fine white sand. It has pristine clear blue waters, lagoons, vegetation and abundance of activities. The Playa Flamingo area offers a wide variety of secluded beaches and lagoons due to the mountain formations reaching into the sea

Tortuga is a rocky, mountainous island in Haiti, just off the northern coast of the mainland. The fishing port of Basse-Terre, on the island’s south coast, is home to the ruined 17th-century Fort de Rocher, once a pirate stronghold. In the east, one of the island’s caves, Grotte au Bassin, has a large pre-Columbian sculpture of a woman. Beaches include Pointe Ouest, at the western tip, with wide white sands