gam cultural

On this Travel Thursday, I know some readers are planning trips to Costa Rica in the upcoming high season. Here are a few resources that are not only handy for trip planners, but that I like to follow just for a splash of color in my Facebook or Instagram feed, along with travel inspiration for the future.

Costa Rica Traveler brings you amazing photographs by co-creator Andrés Madrigal along with useful links and articles from around the web. I kind of want their Instagram feed to be the wallpaper in my house; it’s a thing of beauty. The featured image on this post was taken by Andrés at Playa Negra on the Caribbean coast – see what I mean? You can follow them on Facebook or Instagram.

GOPlaya is “the beach engine of Costa Rica” – a site, feed and app that helps you figure out which beach to visit. The award-winning platform allows you to search more than 200 beaches and find useful info including access routes, photographs and videos. (If you’ve never been to Costa Rica, I can assure you that “Hmm, which of the 200 beaches should we visit?” is indeed actually a question that befuddles the tourist. There are so many, and often the best ones are down unpromising-looking dirt roads, and you wouldn’t find them unless you had a helpful platform on your phone. The struggle is real.) Check them out on Facebook or Instagram.

If you’re in the Central Valley and looking for things to do, I highly recommend GAM Cultural, a massive and searchable online directory of events. It’s only available in Spanish, but honestly, the information is so well organized that you can get the gist (name, place, time) and then consult your host or hotel. As a mom I miss 99.9% of the events they share, but I like to follow them on Facebook just to keep tabs on everything that’s going on in the city.

What’s your favorite Costa Rican (or international) travel resource? I want to keep sharing useful info and giving a shout out to people doing great work. Let me know what you love to follow or rely on!

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).