Oh St. Lucia, the very first island that I don’t think I’ll ever return to again…
Finally, I made it to Costa Rica! I wanted a mix of adventure, relaxation and luxury. This entry is about 3 months late but better late than never. The itinerary that GFK put together for me accomplished that. First deciding where to go in Costa Rica is such a tough decision we knew that Arenal was a must see but we were torn between Guanacaste and Manuel Antonio. Because of logistics we ultimately decided on Guanacaste and Arenal.
With Mid January approaching it was time for the annual winter getaway. I snagged Norwegian’s inaugural flight deal in June 2015 and Martinique became our winter destination with the possibility of a day trip to Guadeloupe.
There were a lot of firsts on this trip, first time using AirBnb, first time driving in a foreign country without GPS, first time in a French speaking country etc.
This year I celebrated my birthday a month later. I decided to take my birthday trip over the long Labor Day weekend versus crunching it in to a measly 3 day time frame. Still in the limited PTO struggle, I had to find a destination less than 6 hours away. Initially I booked a hotel on my actual birthday weekend to Panama but the flights were ridiculous (a 10 hour layover on my return was out of the question). My 3 options were Costa Rica, Belize and Panama. Costa Rica was not feasible for this trip because I’d need at least 10 days to see the country so this narrowed my choices a bit.