GEODYSSEY COSTA RICA PANAMA & NICARAGUA Travel guides Planning your trip Tailor-made holidays Small group holidays Touring, wildlife & active holiday suggestions to help design your own trip Selfdrive holidays Where to stay Beaches Specialist birdwatching Planning your holiday f you enjoy planning your holiday in for your own unique holiday. Often you arrange for a trained and experienced I detail, there is plenty to help you in can choose both how you would like to English-speaking guide appropriate to this brochure. Browse the early pages travel and the level of accommodation your interests. on each country for inspiration. Then you prefer. When you are happy with a proposal, choose whether you prefer to travel Call or email us with your choices and send us your booking form. independently on a private tailor- questions and we will discuss them with Small group holidays Take the family made trip, or as part of a small group. you and prepare a full written proposal. Costa Rica makes a great destination for To join in with a convivial small group, led We can modify this as often as necessary adventurous families. There is a lot to see within by a knowledgeable local guide, please Tailor-made holidays to create your perfect trip. reasonable travel times, and hotels for most see our popular Costa Rican Odyssey Our tailor-made service is just that. We Meals can be included or left for you budgets. on p22. design your trip just for you to reflect to decide during your holiday. For each Many places that are geared up for visitors have your tastes and budget, matched against day of the sample itineraries shown here, Add-ons genuinely interesting small-scale attractions to what is available in each country. BLD (breakfast, lunch, dinner) indicates Whichever style of holiday you choose, entertain young minds–especially those with The designs in this brochure can be the meals that are included in the prices you can always add time at the beach or an interest in wildlife or wacky outdoor pursuits. taken off-the-peg, or you can pick and given in the Booking Information insert. special extensions for wildlife viewing, Vaccinations are the fewest in the tropics, and choose from them as a starting point If you would like a guide, we will walking, etc. the slight risk of malaria entails only the mildest weekly pills. Selfdrive is especially popular for families, and excellent value. Panama would be a moderately more Making a booking adventurous choice, depending which parts of the country you choose. Nicaragua’s undoubted he Booking Information insert if anything goes wrong while you are We protect ALL our customers attractions may or may not be appreciated so T included with this brochure away you have a network of helpful, The air holiday packages readily by younger teenagers. covers dates, prices, and how to book. knowledgeable and resourceful people in this brochure are ATOL (If yours is missing or has become locally and back in the UK to support protected by the Civil out of date then please call us for a you. We're just a phone call away when Aviation Authority. Our replacement or download it from our you are planning your trip, preparing to ATOL number is 5292. website.) leave, or out in your destination. ATOL protection extends It's good to know that when you book When you get back we will send you primarily to holiday arrangements that your holiday with Geodyssey you not only a short questionnaire to make sure include air travel for customers who book get the benefit of our in-depth knowledge everything went well and to gather your and pay in the UK. of our destinations from many years of comments on the places you visited. We As a member of AITO, the Association of Hotels will also ask what you think of us. More Independent Tour Operators, Geodyssey making travel arrangements to Latin When describing hotels we use the following to than 95% of our customers describe also provides equivalent financial America, and our up-to-date knowledge indicate relative prices: their overall level of satisfaction with protection for customers who do not buy of the best places, old and new. You MID-RANGE A good standard option which we their holiday as "Excellent" or "Good", flights from us and/or who book and pay also get our experience in designing think is comfortable and pleasant but without with over 90% rating it as "Excellent". A from outside the UK. holidays for different tastes and budgets, frills, at a price to suit the typical traveller. Guest staggering 99% rate the service that our Please see the Booking Information the confidence that your money is fully bedrooms all have private bathrooms of course. office provides as "Excellent". insert for more information. protected, and the reassurance that UPPER RANGE Something superior marks these hotels out, such as particularly nice décor and furnishings, above average food or an enviable location, with a price to match. Sustainable travel TOP RANGE At the upper end of what is e try to support local economies, to how it is operated, and some of the available. A special place to stay, but at the top of the market price-wise. High prices do not W minimise any harmful impact most sustainably-run hotels are not yet on the natural environment, and accredited. always mean luxury facilities, but may reflect the encourage conservation wherever we remoteness of the location. Tribal communities can. Your holiday will not only benefit Our personal favourites are marked with Meeting tribal people and other you it will also benefit local people and the Geodyssey logo in gold. Geodyssey and The Rainforest indigenous communities on their terms their communities. Alliance as an invited and welcome guest can be a We see our relationships with local Back in 2007 we formed a partnership wonderful and enriching experience. hotels, guides and organisers as long- with The Rainforest Alliance to work Their ways of life can be under great term partnerships that benefit our towards best management practices in pressure, however, and it is vitally customers and them. To help hotels sustainable tourism in Costa Rica. We important that every member of adopt sustainable practices Geodyssey are very proud that we were the first their community is treated with great has formed a partnership with the travel company in the UK to form such a consideration, politeness and respect. Rainforest Alliance, described below. partnership with them for any country. It We strongly encourage you to make the Air travel accounts for 3-4% of global has worked so well that it has now been Guides effort to experience the lives of different Our guides are all local people–the best person carbon emissions, but the destruction of extended to Nicaragua and to Ecuador. cultures in the country you visit, and to forests has been estimated to amount The Rainforest Alliance also help to introduce you to a country is someone who make the sort of contribution to their lives there. A good guide turns a successful to 20-30% of the total - up to ten times promote sustainable production of lives that they themselves would most more. When fuel is burned, that's much timber, and sustainable farming of coffee trip into a truly memorable one with insights welcome - personally through the respect that foreign guides struggle to match. They are the end of the story, but when a forest (look for their symbol on coffee jars in you pay them, perhaps with a willingness is cut down it also reduces the planet's your supermarket), so it is exciting to see typically well-educated, fluent English speakers to acknowledge your own society's and very experienced. They know how to make ability to absorb carbon from the a similarly professional approach being shortcomings, as well as materially in atmosphere, and has a major effect on applied to travel. things work locally and how to put things back ways they may suggest - perhaps by on the rails if there are last minute hitches. biodiversity with the loss of many animal One of the things we like best about buying handicrafts made for visitors or and plant species. this initiative is that it is locally based Specialist naturalist and birdwatching guides with useful and appropriate gifts where are also available. Drivers may have English By choosing a holiday that values the and in tune with how things work in each needed. environments of the tropics you are country. Hoteliers receive training and which at best is only serviceable – you will have doing a great deal to support the planet technical assistance, including workshops plenty of opportunity to practise your Spanish or too-perhaps much more than the impact and seminars on best management, your sign language with them! of the fuel used to take you there (which health and safety, and sustainability. Contact us you may choose to CO2 offset as well). They are encouraged to seek Geodyssey Ltd A note of caution Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua certification with an appropriate body. 116 Tollington Park Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua are all developing countries. Allowance must be made all protect large areas in national parks It is a remarkable, locally-driven effort London N4 3RB England and reserves. By visiting them you are which we encourage you to support for occasional inadequacies and shortcomings: supporting their efforts in a very positive by choosing hotels which have already www.geodyssey.co.uk a corresponding degree of caution, flexibility, received accreditation, from level 1 to and patience will also help.