How we got here
I'm Elise. I first came to Costa Rica in 2011, and I didn't plan any of it — I came along. My parents had been travelling the country for years by then and knew exactly what they were doing, and on that first trip we toured most of it. We came as an extended family: my parents, my grandparents, my siblings. That's still how we travel.
My parents eventually found the property they'd been looking for, in Ojochal, and they're building it out now — their own place plus a few smaller casitas. My brother liked it enough that he moved his family here two years ago. So Ojochal isn't a destination for us. It's where a lot of our family is, and we come back every year, usually for long stretches. The kids are enrolled in school here. I work remotely while we're down.
Río is 6 now and Mar is 4. This is the notebook we wish someone had handed us in 2011.
Why we started writing it down
Because we kept getting better at it, and none of it was written anywhere. Travelling as a whole family — grandparents, parents, toddlers, all at once — turns out to be a specific skill, and every trip we learned something that made the next one work better. Which beach my father can actually walk. Which restaurant doesn't mind a two-year-old. Which drive is worth it and which one ruins the day.
The first time we came with kids was 2022. Río was small and I was pregnant with Mar, and we still moved around — Arenal, Manuel Antonio, a few smaller places in between. We're a flexible family. We plan, then we adjust, and we are fine with not knowing exactly how a day will go. But flexible is easier when someone has already told you what to expect. That's what this is.
How we work
Every place on this site carries the same specimen card — cost, time, bathrooms, terrain, shade — filled in on site, not from memory or someone else's blog. Kid quotes are verbatim, recorded that day. Grandparent verdicts come from travelling with grandparents, not from guessing. And nothing gets published until we've been there ourselves.
Then we come back. Prices change, roads wash out, kids grow, knees age. Every page shows its last-verified date, and old reviews are never rewritten — new ones stack alongside, year after year.
One thing we have a stake in
My parents rent a casita on their property in Ojochal, and we stay on that property when we're down. So we have a family interest in Ojochal being a place people want to come to. You should weigh what we say about the village with that in mind.
We haven't written about their place and we won't review it the way we review somewhere independent — you can't file an honest verdict on your own parents' guest house. If we ever do write about it, that page will say all of this at the top, before anything else.
Planning a trip?
Everything we know is in the experiences and guides — free, structured, and updated every visit. If you'd rather have it assembled for your exact crew, that's Custom Field Notes .
Planning a trip?
Everything we know is in the experiences and guides — free, structured, and updated every visit. If you'd rather have it assembled for your exact crew, that's Custom Field Notes.