We're Back From Costa Rica: April 2021 News From VBH

My Family After Our Horseback Ride in Monteverde

We were all smiling after our two-hour ride through Monteverde's beautiful countryside. In the background you can see the hills and the Gulf of Nicoya. It was such a gorgeous day: we had been dealing with intermittent rain and pretty cloudy weather for the previous three days, which made us appreciate the sunshine it all the more. After our ride, we went back to the farm to make our own sugar cane candy and had a delicious snack of watermelon and empanadas.

I am writing this from the flight back from Costa Rica after spending Spring Break there with my family. We had a lovely 9-night trip exploring a handful of destinations around the country – as I am apt to do, we packed a lot into our trip: we stayed at Finca Rosa Blanca, a coffee farm just outside of San Jose, at the Peace Lodge, the Springs Resort and Spa in Arenal, at Senda in Monteverde and at the Westin Playa Conchal in Guanacaste. From hikes and horseback rides to soaking in hot springs and lounging by the pool, we had a wonderful time. It was a special treat for my family to be able to travel at Spring Break – a silver lining of the COVID pandemic – because I usually have so many clients traveling it is difficult to take my own vacation during that time, but since we had just a fraction of our usual travelers, (and Kelly, VBH’s manager of agency operations, monitored my email and phone) we were able to take a family vacation.

You can check out more pictures from our trip on Instagram and Facebook. And if Costa Rica is on your bucket list, please reach out so we can work on putting together an amazing trip! I've got lots of great tips to share about how to make your trip truly special.

Club Rio Hot Springs

After visiting Mistico Hanging Bridges in the morning, we had the afternoon to enjoy The Springs Resort and Spa, so we took the shuttle bus down to Club Rio -- the onsite adventure park to explore the natural hot springs. There were probably only a half dozen other guests at the park in the afternoon, so we felt like we had the place all to ourselves, which was really nice. This is just one of the six hot springs in the Club Rio area, and the resort actually has two additional sets of pools/hot springs right at the resort to enjoy.

April News From Vacations By Heather

As vaccines become more readily available, we are seeing an increasing number of clients new and old ready to travel. We are happy to be able to help people plan special escapes after spending so much time home and close-to-home. Many multi-generation groups are planning much needed time to re-connect, families are booking bucket-list trips for future travel and couples are planning escapes to re-charge together. For Spring Break we had travelers in Palm Springs, Clearwater, St. John, Turks and Caicos, and Mexico. We have been helping clients plan future trips to Miami and the Keys, the Galapagos, Iceland, the Dominican Republic and even Disney World. We have clients who have trips originally planned for 2020 that are being rescheduled and feel like they will actually happen. Of course, travel right now presents some unique challenges and we are here to help you assess your readiness to travel, as well as to navigate the rules and restrictions and even insurance considerations as you make your travel plans.

This past year has been a challenging one in the world of travel (and everywhere, frankly) and we really appreciate you thinking of VBH when you are ready to make travel plans. Even if you're not ready to travel, but want to support VBH and have been happy with our services in the past, it would be wonderful if you could take a moment to write a review of your experience on Yelp, Google, Facebook, and/or Vacation.com. Thank you!

Red Eyed Tree Frog

This photo was taken during our night hike in Arenal. During this 90 minute walk, we each had flashlights and got to see a variety of frogs, snakes, and even birds sleeping in their nests.

Advice for Traveling During COVID
One of the reasons that I travel is to be able to share my first-hand experience with you, and traveling with my family was no different. Some of my key takeaways about traveling right now:

• Consider Your Own Comfort with Risk – I’ve talked to many clients who have ultimately decided that they are NOT ready to travel – and that’s completely ok. For some, the restrictions of mask-wearing, the anxiety of test-taking and the risk of contracting COVID mean it’s not the right time for them to travel. For some of these folks, we have helped them make plans for Christmas travel or even booked trips for 2022. Having something to look forward to is wonderful, and with all the postponed vacations and pent-up demand, planning in advance is the best way to ensure the most options will be available to you and you’ll have something to look forward to!

• Discuss Your Own Rules Before Traveling – During your trip you may find that you have to make decisions about risks you want to take – whether it’s dining indoors, joining a group tour or having your room cleaned daily. Have conversations with your travel companions about the ways that you will behave in destination BEFORE you depart so that you don’t have to negotiate these choices in the moment and later have regrets.

• Know The Requirements To Travel To Your Destination and to Return Home – Right now, many destinations are requiring COVID tests for admission – if you’ve recently recovered from COVID (or accessing testing is a challenge in your area) those might not be suitable destinations for you. There are some destinations that are open only to fully vaccinated travelers, like Iceland. Rules are constantly changing, but as of this moment, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the USVI are requiring tests to travel to the destinations, but there is no testing requirement to return, while some destinations will require testing to travel AND to return. And as of right now, all travelers returning from international destinations must provide proof of a negative COVID test to return to the US, unless they have recovered from COVID in the past 90 days and provide documentation from their doctor. A key piece to keep in mind is that it’s a fluid situation – rules, requirements and restrictions are subject to change and you might book a trip with certain rules in place and they might change before you travel. The good news is that many resorts and destinations are making testing easily available (my family and I took COVID tests at our last resort in Costa Rica and had results later that day so we could enjoy the rest of our trip.)

• Be Ready for Change – In addition to changing travel requirements, I’m seeing much more frequent flight schedule changes than normal as airlines adjust to increasing demand. Downloading the app for your airline will make staying on top of your flight schedule easier, but even then, flight schedules might no longer be ideal for your family. Case in point: we were originally supposed to fly home from Costa Rica at 1 p.m. and get home in time for dinner and regular bedtime, but our departure time was changed to 4:30 p.m. which meant we had a more leisurely check-out day at the beach, but also meant we didn’t arrive home until after midnight and my kids were *not* thrilled about getting up for virtual school this morning.
  
  Have questions or concerns? Sign up for a time to chat or send me a quick email at heather@vacationsbyheather.com so we can discuss which options might be best for your family.