Episode 29: How Do We Do Worldschooling in Costa Rica?

Episode Title: Episode 29: How Do We Do Worldschooling in Costa Rica?

Hosts: Astrid & Clint, creators of The Wandering Daughter

(Intro clip sourced from 9:43 — Clint defending the wildlife sightings in Manuel Antonio after Astrid's raccoon joke)

Costa Rica holds a special place in the worldschooling journey of Astrid and Clint — it was their honeymoon destination in 2009, and they returned years later with their kids. In this episode, they answer the question: how do I world school in Costa Rica?

They open with what makes the country exceptional: though small, Costa Rica contains roughly 20% of the world's biodiversity, making ecotourism its defining draw. Clint and Astrid run through the logistics — flying into San Jose, the surprising prevalence of English over Spanish (especially compared to Mexico), getting around by bus, rental car, or private shuttle, and what to know about the cash-heavy economy, US dollar acceptance, and the spotty internet that often surprises digital nomads who choose it as a base.

The highlights section comes alive with personal stories from the two regions they know best: Manuel Antonio and La Fortuna. In Manuel Antonio National Park, they describe beautiful beaches, boardwalk-style hiking trails, and extraordinary wildlife sightings — sloths, monkeys, and more. A return visit where they hired a local guide named Eli transformed a nature walk into an interactive wildlife classroom: he spotted animals the family never would have found on their own, brought a telescope to get the kids up close, and ran animal trivia that turned creature superpowers into learning moments for their Wild Kratts-obsessed kids. In La Fortuna, a guided tour to the Arenal volcano and a soak in the hot springs gave the family a completely different dimension of the country's natural world.

Astrid and Clint also reflect honestly on what Costa Rica offers culturally — and what it doesn't. Spanish colonialism has diminished much of the indigenous presence, though a museum in San Jose provided some historical grounding. The episode closes with a candid safety conversation: petty theft is a more visible issue here than in Mexico, and arriving prepared at the San Jose airport — knowing your ride before you land — can save the whole family a lot of stress.

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📋 Episode Chapters: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:00:07 – Welcome to Worldschooling Q&A 00:00:59 – Today's Question: How Do I World School in Costa Rica? 00:01:13 – Costa Rica Overview: Size, Biodiversity & Ecotourism 00:03:18 – Getting Around: Transport, Currency & the Digital Nomad Hub 00:06:33 – Nature Highlights & Manuel Antonio National Park 00:08:12 – Hiring a Local Guide: Wildlife You'd Otherwise Miss 00:09:43 – ↩ Source of Intro Clip: More Than Just a Raccoon 00:10:03 – La Fortuna, Arenal Volcano & Hot Springs 00:10:31 – Culture, Diversity & Indigenous History 00:11:50 – Safety, Petty Theft & Arriving in San Jose 00:14:33 – Outro & How to Support the Show

👉 For full show notes, resource links, and a complete episode guide, visit: https://thewanderingdaughter.com/episode-29-worldschooling-in-costa-rica

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I do want to mention that we didsee more than just a raccoon.
We see raccoons here too.It's different. Sorry.
But we saw, yeah. This isworld schooling q and a.
I'm Astrid, creator of the wanderingdaughter. As a traveling family,
we've spent four years travelingfull-time to over 18 countries and six

(00:21):
continents. Wherever we go,
we try to learn as much as we can aboutthe countries and cultures we visit.
While we didn't coin the term, welike to call this world schooling,
using the world as ourclassroom. Each week,
my husband Clint and I will answer onequestion about world schooling and share
our experiences of traveling the worldwith our kids. Ready to get started?

(00:43):
Great. Let's dive in.
This week's question we'reanswering how do I world school in
Costa Rica?
So just like we did withMexico in the last episode,
kind give you just an overview ofCosta Rica and logistics and stuff.

(01:06):
Costa Rica is a really small countrycompared to Mexico. It's tiny, tiny, tiny,
but it has something, I don't rememberexactly what the number is, but.
20% Of the biodiversity.
Of the world.
Of the world, yeah. Right.
Yeah. It's incredible. So because of that,
it is a country that focusesheavily on ecotourism.

(01:26):
That's its primary draw, I think.But the main city of San Jose,
you'll fly into San Jose. There's reallyno other airports as far as I know of.
That's the only one. You might beable to get there by boat and stuff,
but most people either drive in from asurrounding country or they will fly into
San Jose.
Spanish is the main languagebecause there is a lot of

(01:49):
foreigners. There are alot of foreign travelers.
There are.
A lot of foreign businesses.
A lot of American travelers.
Too, a lot of American travelersand American businesses.
There's a lot of Americans orforeigners living there. It is,
for better or for worse, has changed.
We first traveled there whenwe got married 15 years ago.

(02:12):
In 2009.
And it was changing then too already,
but even from that time to just a fewyears ago when we went there, again,
there is a lot of Englishspoken over Spanish.
So in our last episode we talked aboutMexico being primarily Spanish speaking
unless you're in touristy zones.
Costa Rica was almost everywherewe went was English speaking.

(02:36):
That said, I think you should stilllearn some Spanish while you're there,
but yes.
And we kind of were in moretouristy areas anyways,
we've only really been to three areasof Costa Rica. We've been San Jose,
we've been to Manuel Antonioand we've been to La Fortuna.
So those tend to be more especiallypopular with digital nomads.

(02:57):
But.
Having said that, theytake us dollar there.
Parts of it can be really expensive. Partsof it can still be pretty affordable.
Lodging.
Can be really expensive.That said, overall,
it's still a fascinating place to go to,
especially if you'reinto the ecotourism bit.
Any other highlights or overview?

(03:18):
Yeah, I would say gettingaround Costa Rica is,
I think that there are severaldifferent ways to approach it.
When we were there as acouple, we took the bus,
which I think you canstill do as a family.
There's buses that gofrom one city to another,
and it's relatively simpleto figure out the routes

(03:40):
and stuff and buy the tickets.
But another option is to renta car and as we rented a car,
and then we also hire, youcan also hire a driver,
a shuttle if you want togo from a San Jose directly
to Manuel Antonio, for instance, ifyou didn't want to drive yourself,
you could hire a shuttleto drive you down there.

(04:04):
And along with cars, Ithink you can rent scooters.
There's a lot of people rent scootersor motorcycles, so that's common.
It's a fairly small country,
so you can get almost anywhere youneed to go within a day or two of
driving. Even at that, for as small asa country, it shouldn't take that long.
But some of the roads are verywindy, especially along the coast,

(04:26):
so that's why it can take a littlebit of extra time to get around.
It's a huge surfing destination.
Costa Rica is a verypopular surfing destination,
so there's several surfing towns thatcan also end up being party towns.
Yeah, they take, what was thecurrency? There was ke colon.
Colon colones. Yeah.
Ke colones. I think it'smostly cash based still,

(04:49):
even though they take the USdollar, it's US dollar cash,
so it's mostly cash basedsystem. So just be aware of that.
There are two logistics that Ithink a little bit challenging.
Getting cash was a little bit morechallenging than it was getting cash in
Mexico. That was surprising to us.
Just I think maybe it'sjust the regions we were in,

(05:10):
just not as many access to ATMs and then
cell service or cell orinternet access was a lot
spottier for us than we had thought.And Costa Rica is a digital nomad hub.
That's.
Where.
A lot of digital nomads go.
And I think digital nomads tend to gothere because of the lower cost of living,

(05:32):
at least compared to the countrieswhere they're coming from.
And also just the nature and the
amenities that are availablefor travelers in Costa Rica.
And there'll be a lot ofsimilarities between, in fact,
I feel like Costa Rica is

(05:52):
the Latin American version of,say, Bali, the island of Bali.
And when we talk about Bali in a futureepisode, there'll be some letters there.
But yeah, I think that's a good overview.
Of logistics. So just going backto the internet connectivity,
just be aware if this was a few years ago,
so maybe the infrastructure has improved,

(06:14):
but I know that when we weretrying to do video calls,
sometimes they would drop orit would get cut in and out,
so just make sure,
and then sometimes the internet speedjust wasn't fast enough for what we
needed. So just keep that in mind ifyou're planning on working in Costa Rica.
Now, having said that,transition to the highlights,

(06:36):
we've actually adoredour time in Costa Rica.
I think it's not necessarily in our toplists of places we'd want to go back to,
but having said that, we also had a greattime, a wonderful time in Costa Rica.
So.
I think even though we have some ofthese negative things about it, overall,
we still had a great time.

(06:57):
So I think the thing that we lovedabout it, as we've already mentioned,
is just the nature. There's so many.
They do a really good job ofjust making sure the government,
I think the tourism industry inCosta Rica does a really good job of
highlighting the ecotourismthat they have available

(07:18):
for people. What was one placethat you liked? For nature?
It is a little bit limitedthe places we've gone,
and I have heard that some of the othernational parks and things are very nice.
We have only technicallygone to one national park, and that was Manuel Antonio.
It is really busy withtourism. Having said that,

(07:40):
it's still so charming.We really enjoy it there.
There's some beautiful restaurants,some beautiful beaches,
really nice hiking. The hikingis really, I equate it to
Yellowstone hiking a little bit wherethere's a lot of kind of paved or
boardwalk, boardwalk pathsto kind of guide you,

(08:02):
and that's to protect the environment.
But.
See all sorts of wildlife, sloths.
Monkeys.
I mean just incredible amounts ofwildlife and it's absolutely beautiful.
Something that was nice when we werein Manuel Antonio was hiring a guide,
which we went there the first timeand we kind of went on our own,
and I think it was nice. We saw, oh,

(08:23):
we saw some sloths and we saw a raccoon,
but when we went the second time around,
we had a guide and he hadthis big telescope with him.
And the benefits of having aguide too is that they know
the forest, they know how tospot the animals more than we do.
We're just like pedestrianamateur, not even amateur,

(08:47):
like nature lovers or nature enthusiasts.
So a guide is going tobe able to see, oh, look,
between those leaves,there's an animal there,
and then he's got his telescope andthe kids can look into it and see
the animals that are there.

(09:07):
And then also just the guides, the guide.
We went with this guide named E,and he has a tour company there,
but he was so knowledgeableabout all the different animals,
and then he was asking the kids questions,
do you know why they call thisanimal this and this and this?
Or do you know what this animalsuperpower is? And at the time,

(09:31):
the kids were really into wild crats,
so they were just Soaking all ofthis in because they're like, yeah,
we get to see these animals in theirsuperpowers and all this stuff.
I do want to mention we didsee more than just a raccoon.
We see raccoons heretoo. It was different.
But yeah,

(09:51):
so that was a wonderful part aboutwalking through Manuel Antonio
with a guide.
Yeah, I agree. We also did a guide in.
Launa La.
Fortuna.
Yes.
For the RNL volcano. Yes.
And.
That's an incredible, so that'sanother side of the nature, right?
I mean.
You have the wildlife andthe biodiversity there,

(10:11):
but then you also have the flora side.
So that's going and seeingthe volcano and the.
Rich and ecosystem springs,the hot springs, theres.
That was absolutely beautiful.
And that was something we didn't dothe very first time went Costa Rica,
so it was really nice to go there. Yes.
Yeah.
When we talked about Mexico,

(10:31):
we talked a lot about diversity of peopleand especially the representation of
indigenous and cultures and stuff.
How did you feel thoughabout that with Costa Rica?
I feel like because it was,
and this is just our observationsfrom being there for a few weeks,
we unfortunately didn't spend asmuch time in Costa Rica as we did

(10:53):
in Mexico, but Costa Rica isalso considerably smaller,
and I think because it's smaller,there isn't as much diversity.
And from,
we were talking to atravel company owner who
is Costa Rican,
and she's saying that there's justa lot of intermingling with the

(11:17):
Spanish because of Spanishcolonialism that there's like,
it's sort of pushed outsome of that indigenous,
the indigenous genes, Iguess, population. Yeah.
So we unfortunately weren'table to really get a good
sense of the culture andthe history of Costa Rica,

(11:38):
but there was a fantastic museum in SanJose that kind of gave us some of that,
and we were able to see to learn alittle bit about it while we were there.
But yeah, that's what I felt like.
Yeah, I agree. I think the next thingI wanted to chat about in Mexico,
we kind of talked about safety. I thinkmaybe it's just with each of these,
we talk a little bit about safety.

(11:59):
I think especially folks who have nottraveled a lot and especially not traveled
with your kids, I think that's somethingthat's always a concern. Like Mexico,
they don't have potablewater for drinking water,
so you have to do bottled water.
Bring a grail bottle, whichhas the built-in filter.
Or the Roone,
which is the giant liter bottlesof water you can get in any store.

(12:21):
I think from a safetystandpoint, as far as crime goes,
whereas Mexico deals with somelarger crime that we talked about,
we never felt as much worryabout petty theft or petty
crime in Mexico. In Mexico.
Even.
In the T areas. I don't think we felt,
it didn't really feel like that wasa presence as much. In Costa Rica,

(12:43):
there is a heavy presence ofpetty theft or petty crime,
and unfortunately you just hear storyafter story of people getting stuff
swiped from their car orgetting swiped from the beach,
or maybe it's a lot of surfing towns or.
Just because there's so many tourists.
Yeah, and we had stuff swipedfrom us at a bus station,

(13:05):
so the city San Jose,
whereas we felt pretty safe, I think.
I don't think just like MexicoCity or other places we've been,
there are pockets of the city thatfeel uncomfortable, but even in the US,
that's not even a knock onany other country in the us.
If there's pockets of cities,we feel uncomfortable.
San Jose I think had a little bit moreof a threat of petty theft and petty

(13:28):
crime. So take that for what you will.
I think it's our experience.
But again, it shouldn'tdeter you from visiting.
You just need to in differentcities or various cities,
just like stay alert.
And I didn't mention this in lastepisode, but both Mexico and Costa Rica,

(13:49):
if this is your first time goingto either one of those countries,
so in Mexico,
you're going to likely land in MexicoCity or Puerto Varto or some of the major
hubs, and you're goingto land in San Jose here.
If you're flying in andyou've never been there,
maybe a good opportunitybefore you get there, book

(14:09):
your ride, whatever your transport is.
Or to.
The hotel or to the Airbnb or where you'regoing just because when you come out
of that, you come out of thatsecurity checkpoint in the airport,
you are bombarded with people trying toget you to get their taxi and this taxi
and this ride,
and so it's one of those cities thatcan be overwhelming if you're not

(14:31):
used to that.
Yeah.
So if you want to learn more about someof these places that we highlight or
just our experience in Costa Rica,
I have a couple articles on my website,
one with a Costa Rica itinerary,
and the other is focusing onactivities to do in La Fortuna,
so we'll check that out. Yeah.Do you have anything else to add?

(14:53):
I don't think so. Well,that's all for today.
Thank you for joining us on this episodeof World Schooling q and a with Astrid
and Clint.
Be sure to check out the show notes forany links we mentioned in the episode
and visit my website,
the wandering daughter.com to divedeeper into world schooling and family
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(15:58):
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