This year our world famous tour received a nice mention in the May 14th issue of “Newsweek.” Sara Davidson, a senior editor for Ophra Winfrey and renowned author, accompanied us on the October Beach/Central Valley Tour. She was doing research on her new book on baby boomers. There will be a whole chapter devoted to Christopher Howard’s Relocation/Retirement Tour. Christopher Howard was also mentioned in the July 30th edition of New York Times.
This month Peronet Despeignes, an economics writer for “Fortune Magazine”, took our Central Valley Tour. He is gathering information on an article about baby boomers retiring in Costa Rica.
Mr. Despeignes is also part of a brilliant team of experts behind an innovative concept called Serenity. The founders of the company and “think tank” are graduates of Harvard, the Haas Business School of the University of California, Stanford and other prestigious universities.
Serenity is an international company dedicated to outsourcing retirement. The company’s mission is to scour the world to find the best, cheapest places to live, retire or do business and move their clients their effortlessly. They review your finances and figure out the most prudent relocation option for you and help you get settled. Everything from A to Z is done for you. The services continues after you make the move to help you adjust to the new culture. Nobody else in the world offers these unique services.
The company is proud to announce that Christopher Howard is now part of their Board of Directors and CEO of their soon-to-be Costa Rica office.
We will keep our readers informed as this unique project progresses.
At the end of August I took a group of 10 people on my Central Pacific Relocation/Retirement Tour. We first visited the Jaco beach area. The highlight of the place was the sunset from Hotel Villa Caletas. The hotel is built on the top of a mountain with an incredible 180 degree view of the Gulf of Nicoya and the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. There is a small Greek-style amphitheatre where concerts are held. It is the perfect place to view a sunset. The place has to be seen to believe. As one of my clients said, “All you have to do to get sold on Costa Rica is just view a sunset from here.” It really has to be experienced and cannot be described by a whole string of adjectives. The drinks are also great!
The next day we left for the Dominical area. In case you don’t know Dominical is called a tropical Big Sur because the costal mountains come right down to the sea. Thus, the place has a strong resemblance to California’s Big Sur area. I doubt if there is a more beautiful stretch of coastline any other place in the world. All of the people I take there on my tours flip out over the natural beauty of the costal mountains and lush tropical rain forest. I have had a good number of clients fall in love with the area and build the house of their dreams there.
The people at South Pacific Real estate services (1-888-581-1786 toll free) and the Uvita Hospitality Center always help me show my clients the wonders of the area. On the second day of the tour we had a very interesting experience. We were traveling up a mountain road in four cars. It had been raining a lot in the area and the road was very muddy. I was in the first car with one client and we made it to the top of the mountain and were enjoying the panoramic view. We were there about 20 minutes and soon noticed none of the other vehicles had arrived. To make a long story short the other cars got stuck in the mud. Needless to say my clients were upset. They thought we had let them there and a couple even started to panic. When we returned to the place where they were stuck we called for a couple of more vehicles to get the people out of there. Four of my clients chose to hike out to the main road. The rest were taken out by car. I joked with the people and told them that getting stuck in the mud was part of the tour but it didn’t work out like I had planned it. I took everyone to a nearby bar where we had a few drinks and everyone joked about the experience. A few actually said they liked the adventure.
We originally planned to go to the hotel and clean up for dinner, but since we were near the restaurant we decided to go directly there. By the way, the restaurant is located in a houseboat at the mouth of a river. Not only are the view and ambience incredible but the food has to be some of the best in the world. All of my clients rave about it. We watched the sunset from the upper deck of the houseboat and then had dinner.
More about my tours later.
