We love traveling but also we love travelers.
For this reason, we believe that we were born in Costa Rica a country that gets lots of international travelers (more than 2 million in 2022) who are seeking to enjoy nature and the Pura Vida lifestyle.
If you ask in our town who we are, they will relate us as travelers not only because we have more than 10 years of working in tourism, but also because most of the time we are traveling here in Costa Rica, Panama, or in the USA.
Why in those countries?
Ligia’s mom is from Panama and Rodrigo’s brother move to Ohio a few years ago, so visiting family is the perfect excuse to travel also outside Costa Rica frequently and become a family traveler (If you have kids you know what this looks like).
That means that what moves us (and you have no idea how much) is to bring our local knowledge to travelers to help them to travel in Costa Rica in the smoother way possible as people have done with us.
That’s why we try to be that friend or family member that helps you when you are planning to visit Costa Rica.
We are Ligia and Rodrigo: nature lovers, hiking enthusiasts, and parents of two little explorers Eithan and Isaac.
We have worked in tourism in our country since 2007 and we fell in love working with travelers from all over the world since then, luckily many of them we can call them now friends.
We believe that we haven’t seen all in tourism BUT enough to know that we don’t want to hear again about people having experiences like this in our country:
A family that didn’t enjoy Costa Rica just because they planned their itinerary on their own and didn’t meet their expectations spent a lot of hours driving missing valuable time, and on top of that got ripped off by a “tourist company”.
Officially, our job is to hear the expectations of your trip first and then help you to meet those expectations through information about Costa Rica, VR tours, or planning services so you can have a nice experience in Costa Rica.
We consider our main areas of expertise as travel advisors are nature, hiking, and family-friendly destinations.
Our Story
To make a long story short: We met each other in our college years while we worked together in a travel agency in downtown San José.
Ligia was finishing her final project at university to graduate with a degree in tourism. At the same time, Rodrigo was finishing his certification to become a tour guide.
We found that we had something in common: We both loved to be outdoors in nature doing either hiking, wildlife photography, or birdwatching.
After nearly 2 years of dating, we got engaged, and 6 months later (yes that was fast!), we decided we still really liked each other and gathered all our family and friends together to CELEBRATE this thing called love.
So we got married and continue traveling and hiking at every possible opportunity.
We moved forward with our careers and life and got different jobs in tourism over the years.
Ligia got a job as an international volunteer coordinator and was attracted to working on social projects. She worked for 6 years as an administrator at a Children’s NGO.
Rodrigo from working every day in nature as a tour guide for several years had to step out of his comfort zone and switch to a travel tech company where he gained valuable experience in technology.
How do parenting and the pandemic pivot our travel business
Becoming parents and the pandemic came into our lives almost simultaneously.
In January 2020 our new adventure began with our first son Eithan two months later pandemic hit the world and especially the travel industry.
Before COVID we used to guide couples in the cloud forest up to tourist buses everywhere in Costa Rica. Also helping people plan their vacations was our main income source.
In May 2020 our government like many other countries in the world shut down airports, which meant that we and many travel businesses in Costa Rica have no tourists.
We couldn’t plan their trips and had no tours to guide them. On top of that, we had a newborn during covid time and Ligia decided to be a stay mom.
For that reason, in 2021 a new opportunity came we started as VR tour guides for a Japanese corporation, basically, we were introduced to the metaverse and VR Travel.
If you want to read more about the history you can read what Business Insider’s article says about it.
Travelers are back so we are back as travel planners and less frequently but still guiding in the person some private groups.
In 2022 our second child Isaac came on board the team.
For that reason now we are enjoying this way of still working in tourism but without leaving the kids for long periods. Thanks to VR Tours, travel planning, or creating courses online to help you with your Costa Rica trip.
To summarize…
- We are a family of 4 that loves hiking together.
- We are a couple that helps travelers to plan their trip to Costa Rica.
- Ligia enjoys introducing people to Costa Rican culture.
- Rodrigo loves to take pictures of wildlife and birdwatching.
- Since we became parents we are enjoying our more than ever our coffee 🙂