Costa Rica Special Deals travel agency helps you visit San Jose, Costa Rica for its Christmas & New Year’s festivities, and summer “fiesta” season 2013.

Christmas carols, traditional ballet, concerts, art tours and exhibits, and the magnificent annual Parade of Lights are all coming to town this holiday season in San José, Costa Rica. The vibrant capital city is looking very festive these days in preparation for Christmas, New Year’s, and the kick-off to the summer “fiesta” season for 2013. Stores have already put up holiday decorations and Christmas gift displays since October. The holiday season moves into full gala mode on December 1, when Costa Rica’s National Theatre (Teatro Nacional) inaugurates the traditional Nativity Scene in the Cultural Plaza (Plaza de Cultura) on Second Avenue (Avenida Segunda). A national choir will sing Christmas carols starting at 5:00 p.m. with the festivities, which are free to attend. The choir will again present their Christmas carol program at 5:00 p.m. on December 2 and also December 3. Earlier on Dec. 2, at 10:30 a.m., the National Symphony will perform the works of Brahms and Prokofiev on the main theatre stage. The traditional Christmas ballet of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” goes on stage December 6-16 by the national youth ballet troupe. 

Call 2221-5341 for more information, or go to http://www.teatronacional.go.cr/index.htm. San José’s National Museum will have its own Nativity Scene dedication on December 5. Holiday-themed activities, music, theater and dance performances, food and an artists’ show will highlight the day. Events begin at 9:00 a.m. and go to 3:00 p.m. For more information, call 2256 8643, email mmasis@museocostarica.go.cr, or go to http://www.museocostarica.go.cr/index.php?lang=en_en. Holiday events in San José, Costa Rica, reach a crescendo with the annual Parade of Lights on December 15. Kicking off at 6:00 p.m. at the La Sabana Park, hundreds of marching bands from all over the country, horse-mounted groups, entertainers and magnificent brightly-lit floats will perform their way down the Paseo Colon boulevard to Second Avenue, finishing at the Cultural Plaza. This year is the 16th for the annual televised event. About one million or so folks attend the parade, showing up early in the day to claim their place on the sidewalk; the energy is electric with so many spectators, but if you’re not up for multitudes, watch the parade on any of the national TV stations. Apart from the holidays, cultural events have been on the rise in San José this year.

For art lovers, the popular Art City Tour is a big hit. Sponsored by GAM Cultural, the free program regularly takes participants on a walking tour (or you can go by minibus with reservations) to a number of museums, art galleries, design stores and cultural venues in Downtown San José, Barrio Amon and Barrio Escalante in the San José area. The next Art City Tour, and last one for the year, is November 23. Beginning at 5:00 p.m., the tour and shuttles will depart from four access points: the Contemporary Museum of Art & Design (Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo), the National Museum (Museo Nacional), The Central Bank Museum (Museos del Banco Central) and the Jade Museum (Museo del Jade). The last shuttle leaves at 8:30 p.m. More information can be found at http://www.gamcultural.com/art-city-tour/recorrido-a-pie. Costa Rican artist Marco Chia will hold a gallery opening party on November 29 at Alliance Francaise in San Jose's Barrio Amón for his painting exhibition “Nocturnos.” The party begins at 7:00 p.m. Chia’s exhibition, which is free and will run through Dec. 19, is a compilation of years of his work that uses abstract thinking to create balance and textures through a wide variety of raw materials and techniques. Ongoing temporary exhibitions at the National Museum in San José include a photography collection by photojournalist Luis Alcalá del Olmo entitled “Haití – The Spirits of the Earth.” The exhibit shows 80 photographs of “prayers, laments, songs and dances of Haiti’s voodoo rituals” and unforgettable moments from the country’s 2010 earthquake catastrophe. The show runs through January 6, 2013.

 Also at the National Museum is an exposition called “The New World: Oceans, Unexplored Lands and an Adventurous Spirit” featuring maps, ships and navigation instruments of historical Northern European sea voyages to the Americas. For the first time in Costa Rica, this exhibition brings together 22 historical maps used to sail the seas to reach the “New World,” historical objects and images related to the discovery of the New World, displays on Italian explorers such as Amerigo Vespucci, as well as a reproduction of the sketch used to build Columbus’ caravel “Santa Maria.” The project is an initiative of the Italian Embassy in Costa Rica with the support of the University of Costa Rica and the National Museum, and is open through March 2013. At the Central Bank Museum (also called the Gold Museum), below the Cultural Plaza in Downtown San José, a new art exhibition features 63 works including paintings, drawings, prints, textiles and reliefs, by Costa Rican artist Lola Fernández Caballero.

  

Come experience the rich cultural events and offerings of San José, Costa Rica for yourself! Costa Rica Special Deals arranges your Costa Rica travel needs with ease. The Costa Rica-based travel service professionally guides you through the process of choosing hotels, tours, transportation, local flights, car rentals and other services for your vacation to Costa Rica. Costa Rica Special Deals always offers special deals, and the most competitive rates online. By Shannon Farley

Are you ready to make these vacations transformational and empowering?

Any Olympic athlete or professional athlete, or high school or university athlete, or even a child on a sports team for that matter, has a coach. Actors have coaches. Singers and dancers have coaches or trainers. Over the past decades, executives and businesspersons have joined the ranks of seeking coaching for success. In today’s modern world, there is Business Coaching, Financial Coaching, Executive Coaching, Career Coaching, Expat & Global Coaching for those living and working in another culture, Personal Coaching, Health Coaching, and even Dating Coaching. Now, here’s a new twist – Adventure Coaching. On Costa Rica’s surf-fringed Central Pacific Coast, at Hermosa Beach, surf school Del Mar Surf Camp is adding “Personal Coaching Sessions” to all of its surf vacations and surf programs. “Adventures like surfing, or canopy tours, or even bungee jumping for instance, can create mental and emotional breakthroughs from the physical adventure,” said Life and Business Coach Paola Castro. “The environment of Playa Hermosa invites you to contemplate the abundance of life. It’s the perfect environment for these sessions. And if you’re faced with activities like surfing, you are physically challenging yourself.” Castro, Costa Rica born and also a surfer, uses the activity of surfing as a metaphorical window into the person’s life. If they had a good day or a frustrating day … how does that show up in their life and work, she explains. She calls the concept “Adventure Coaching”. “Coaching comes from high-performance athletes,” explains Castro. “Thirty years ago in the USA, executives said if high-performance athletes have coaches, why don’t executives in companies and people in their personal lives have coaches?”
 
Coaching is a teaching or training process in which an individual gets support while learning to achieve a specific personal or professional result or goal, according to Wikipedia. “Managing is making sure people do what they know how to do. Training is teaching people to do what they don’t know how to do. Mentoring is showing people how the people who are really good at doing something do it. Coaching is none of these – it is helping to identify the skills and capabilities that are within the person, and enabling them to use them to the best of their ability,” Wikipedia defines. A Life Coach is an “advisor who helps people make decisions, set and reach goals, or deal with problems,” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It is a practice that uses techniques from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, career counseling and positive development, to help people identify and achieve personal goals. The development of Personal Coaching, or Life Coaching, can be traced back to the early 1970s Human Potential Movement in the USA, and credited to the teachings of Werner Erhard’s “Est Training.” One of the most successful and well-known personal coaches in the United States is Tony Robbins, who has been coaching executives to celebrities for success for more than 30 years. In celebration of Del Mar Surf Camp’s 10^th Anniversary in 2013, owner Maria del Mar said they want to give more to people and create vacations that are “transformational and empowering.” “Coaching is a transformational process that will help you find the clarity and courage you need to start living the life you dream and deserve,” asserts Del Mar Surf Camp’s website. “It’s for anyone to achieve their goals, and also to help in any way they need,” Maria del Mar says. Del Mar Surf Camp specializes in Costa Rica surf vacation packages, yoga-surf retreats and day surf lessons for adults, women only and families. They cater to beginners, intermediate or advanced surfers, with locations on Nosara Beach on the Guanacaste Pacific Coast, Santa Teresa Beach on the Pacific’s Nicoya Peninsula, and Hermosa Beach on the Central Pacific Coast. The Personal Coaching Sessions, led by Paola Castro, are an extra activity that participants can add on to “go beyond having just a traditional vacation,” says Maria del Mar. Personal Coaching will only be available at Del Mar’s Hermosa Beach location. Hermosa Beach, just south of the bustling beach town of Jacó, is Del Mar Surf Camp’s headquarters. The popular beach, with its consistent surf, variety of breaks and great exposure to swells, is famous with advanced surfers from all over the globe. And, just a 5-minute drive away is the south end of Playa Jacó where beginners learn to surf in gentle and easy waves. A big plus is it’s only an hour’s drive away on paved roads from the capital city of San Jose and the international airport. Castro will coach in 60-minute sessions, and can continue with follow-up sessions after a person returns home using Skype video calls. Coaching can focus on realizing dreams and goals, breaking free from fears, taking leaps of faith, reducing stress, improving health, etc. Castro gives practical steps for shaping behaviors to get results. “The thing with coaching is you need to be responsible for creating the changes in your life,” said Castro. “A coach doesn’t tell you what to do. We use a Socratic method based on questions that stimulate the answers within you, because who else knows how better to live your life but yourself.”

Del Mar Surf Camp has created new Summer Specials packages, with great discounts, to celebrate their 10^th anniversary in 2013. Maria del Mar’s message from her website: “Thank you for 10 years of laughter and wipeouts, glassy rides and perfect waves, tears of frustration and tears of joy, new-found friendship and promises to see each other again. By teaching you, we have learned, and thanks to you, we have grown! With all of our gratitude and so much love, we’ve created new special packages for you, hoping to make surfing with us more accessible and therefore continue to share our passion. Simple, beachy, self-guided and affordable, introducing Pacifico, Swell, and Estrella de Mar surf packages. They all include beachfront accommodations, breakfast and surf lessons – all of the essentials to surf with us in Costa Rica, so you can pick your best fit.”

“Surfing soothes me, it's always been a kind of a Zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I'm on a wave.” – Paul Walker   By Shannon Farley

Take a deep breath. Now imagine your lung capacity reduced by one-fifth. Find it a bit harder to breathe? What if that lessens?

Now take your focus out to a global view, and you have a clear picture of what is happening in the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon is the largest contiguous tropical forest in the world, and releases 20% of the world’s life-giving oxygen. Today in 2012, due to mostly slash-and-burn deforestation, nearly one-fifth of the Amazon’s forest has been cleared (Amazon Conservation Team). Often described by scientists as the “Earth’s lungs” (albeit in reverse), tropical rainforests take in vast quantities of carbon dioxide and through photosynthesis convert it into clean, breathable air. Tropical forests like the Amazon, spanning 5,500,000 km2 across 40% of South America (including Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, French Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia), also play a critical role in regulating the Earth’s climate and temperature and store a massive amount of carbon. Circling the Earth’s middle like a webbed green belt – between 23.4° latitude north and south of the equator – the Tropics occupy approximately 40% of the Earth’s land surface with widely diverse ecosystems, including some of the driest deserts and wettest forests on the planet. “Containing great stores of biomass, tropical ecosystems represent the largest reservoir of terrestrial carbon. The Tropics also cycle more carbon dioxide and water than any other biome and play important roles in determining Earth’s energy balance, which drives global systems of temperature and precipitation,” states an October 2012 report by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science & Office of Biological and Environmental Research, entitled Research Priorities for Tropical Ecosystems Under Climate Change. Tropical forests comprise about half of the Earth’s total forest area. Over the past five years, Brazil has managed to reduce its rate of deforestation by 80%, according to Amazon Conservation Team. Scientists, however, believe we are at a tipping point of deforestation in the Amazon – if we lose much more, the damage may be irreversible. The next 10 years is critical, they say. Despite the negative impact of widespread worldwide deforestation, tropical ecosystems continue to benefit the Earth’s atmosphere and climate system by mitigating climatic warming through storing carbon and evaporative cooling, states the U.S. Department of Energy’s report. Of great concern, however, is the vulnerability of tropical ecosystems to rapid shifts in climate change. Home to two-thirds of all of the living species on the planet and nearly half of the medicinal compounds we use every day that come from endemic plants, tropical forests are thought to be especially vulnerable to climate change compared to other regions on Earth. Unlike in temperate forests where temperatures fluctuate widely in different seasons, temperatures in tropical forests maintain a relatively narrow thermal range of 24-38 C (75-100 F). Tropical forests also require sufficient moisture to exist, receiving anywhere from 70-400 inches (1.7-10 m) of rain per year. Mess with that, by increasing atmospheric temperatures or changing precipitation patterns, and tropical forests may be pushed into climates never experienced by existing forests … or worse, extended droughts could cause catastrophic death of trees, accelerating global warming even more, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s climate change report.

 The U.S. Climate Change Science Program defines climate change as “a change in the climate (for example, in temperature or precipitation) that takes place over a few decades or less, persists for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems.” The National Research Council (NRC) in the U.S. reports that abrupt climate change can be regional, hemispheric, or global. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Climate System Research Center indicate in a 2008 report that highland forests in Costa Rica could be seriously affected by future changes in climate, reducing the number of species in a region famous for its biodiversity. They predict that the area will become warmer and drier as climate change accelerates. In the early 1980s, Costa Rica had one of the worst deforestation rates in Latin America. Like the rest of the Central American Isthmus, Costa Rica was once 99% forest, but forest cover steadily diminished from 85% in 1940 to 24% in 1985 (mostly cut for timber and cattle production), according to studies by the Tropical Scientific Center and the University of Costa Rica. Through education and government intervention, by 1997, forest cover increased to 40.4%. Today, a heroic popular tree-planting effort, among other measures, has brought that number up to nearly 47% (2,391,000 hectares), according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation's State of the World's Forests annual report. However, while deforestation rates of natural forest have dropped considerably, Costa Rica's remaining forests still face threats from illegal timber harvesting in protected areas and taking land for agriculture and cattle pasture in unprotected zones. The big business of ecotourism has become one of the country’s most important sources of revenue and will hopefully push reforestation and greater protection measures. Costa Rica’s leaders have set forth an ambitious goal to become the first country to be carbon neutral by 2021. José Salazar, Research Coordinator and Herpetologist at Veragua Rainforest Research & Adventure Park in Costa Rica’s Caribbean mountains, says he’s already seeing distressing signs of climate change. “Last year was the driest in 50 years in Limón (main port city on Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast),” Salazar said. “In 2011 we noted drastically the effects of the warming of the planet. The rainforest around Veragua took on characteristics of a tropical dry forest instead of a rainforest for lack of rain. We’re already seeing the change in the climate.” Veragua Rainforest is a 1,300 hectare (3,212 acre) biology research center and adventure park, located about an hour inland from the historic Caribbean port town of Limón. It is an area of breathtaking tropical rainforest in the foothills of the Talamanca Mountain Range bordering the La Amistad (“Friendship”) International Park, the country’s largest and most remote national park that is shared by both Costa Rica and Panama. Salazar and his team of biologists, in partnership with the University of Costa Rica, study and work to preserve the area’s population of frogs, snakes, lizards, iguanas, insects, butterflies and birds. “We use the park as a model for a pristine (forest) site in excellent conditions,” Salazar said.

 Studying the park’s 55 species of frogs – the most diverse in the entire country – will indicate any early warning signs of serious climate change, remarks Salazar, a specialist on amphibians and reptiles. “The principle group that measures any climate change is the amphibians, because they absorb any chemicals by their skin,” he said. “Rain cycles affect frogs’ reproductive cycles. Some frogs only reproduce one or two times per year, usually in rainy season and with a full moon. If it doesn’t rain like it should, they don’t reproduce.”

So far in 2012, it’s not raining like it normally does, but Salazar said the species are tolerating the drop in moisture for now. It may reach a limit if temperatures continue to increase, however, hitting a breaking point when species begin to die, he said. To help sustain the frogs and other species, Veragua has created artificial habitats with all natural elements so the animals can thrive and reproduce. Using natural plants, earth and water, it’s like they’ve taken a real section of the forest and put a bubble over it. Many places in the rest of the world may have wished they had their own bubble for 2012. As the planet this year experienced record heat, increased drought and fires, unprecedented ice melt, and late season Hurricane Sandy turned “superstorm” that surprised everyone by ravaging the East Coast of the U.S. and six Caribbean countries, and other similar extreme weather anomalies, climatologists have been forced to reconsider previous climate change projections and research techniques. The year before, 2011 rocked us with shocking frequency in irregular weather and disasters, all pointing to climate change.

  

The U.S. National Research Council just released a report earlier in November 2012 on the link between global climate change and national security. The scientific study details how climate change is putting new social and political stresses on societies around the world. The report by the Congressional-chartered research group says the consequences of climate change – including rising sea levels, more frequent and severe floods, droughts, forest fires, and insect infestations – present security threats just as serious as those posed by terrorist attacks. Extreme weather events need to be anticipated where and when they will hit, and assessed in terms of their potential to destabilize countries and regions around the world, the report declares.

The pivotal player still remains the Tropics. Climate scientists at Texas A&M University have been studying past temperature changes in the tropical Atlantic Ocean's subsurface to help uncover an important climate connection between the Tropics and the high latitude North Atlantic. Their new findings are in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). “Evidence is mounting that the Earth's climate system has sensitive triggers that can cause abrupt and dramatic shifts in global climate,” said geological oceanographer Matthew Schmidt of Texas A&M University, who co-authored the report. “When the tropics warmed, it altered climate patterns around the globe.”   Veragua Rainforest Research & Adventure Park is a one-stop rainforest adventure and not-to-be-missed when visiting Costa Rica’s Caribbean area. There are walking trails through the rainforest, a river and waterfall, an aerial tram, a canopy zip line tour, and the biology research station and wildlife habitats, plus a restaurant, café and souvenir shop. Veragua Rainforest Park is open Tuesday to Saturday, from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. Admission is $55 for adults and $45 for children/students; children under age 4 get in free. The admission price includes all park activities and attractions, with the exception of the canopy tour – which is an additional fee. Lunch in their restaurant is $10 per person. The Park is located 40 minutes from Limón and 2 ½ hours from San José, in Brisas de Veragua, 12 km south from the Liverpool entrance on the highway to Limón.   By Shannon Farley

Do you think Eco-friendly Hospitality is Really Green in Costa Rica?

Do you like to work out in your hotel’s gym when you’re away? If you happen to be staying in Denmark’s Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, keeping fit while traveling will help generate the hotel’s electricity and earn you meal vouchers in their restaurant. The flagship eco-hotel is the first hotel in Denmark to generate all of its power from renewable sources – solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling pumps, and stationary bicycles connected to generators which provide the hotel’s electricity. Guests can pedal for only 15 minutes or so and “earn” enough electricity wattage to score a free meal voucher, plus personally contribute to the planet. This novel idea is the latest twist in the eco-friendly hospitality movement that not only benefits the hotel, but gets guests involved in a real-time personal way. Eco-consciousness as a buzzword has turned into a billion-dollar business ranging from everything from the hospitality and tourism industries to clothing, cosmetics, cars, cleaning products, and corporate philosophies. In technology, you’ve got solar-powered laptops, bamboo iPhone cases, and now a new eco-friendly light bulb called LIFX LED that you can manipulate its color and brightness from your smartphone via WIFi. You can even match the light’s settings to the songs on your playlist. How geeky is that? Eco-friendly travel is one of the fastest growing sectors in the tourism industry worldwide, growing 10-15% annually. “Go Green” is the slogan you hear most often nowadays. Green efforts can be everything from simple water conservation measures (guests re-using linens and towels in hotels), using biodegradable cleaning products and recycling, to all-out 100% environmental construction. In the U.S., that would mean being certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council. Earth-conscientious travelers are more frequently seeking out eco-friendly lodging. Boutique hotels are at the forefront of this trend. The most common environmental practices include:

• Guest towel & linen re-use
• LED and compact fluorescent lighting to save energy
• Water-efficient toilets and showerheads
• Reduce waste output
• Reduce energy & water use
• Reduce carbon footprint
• Eliminate pollution
• No pesticides in the gardens
• Window films (like Huper Optik films) that reduce energy usage and protect furniture, carpets, paint, etc. against fading

In ecotourism hotspot Costa Rica, Pranamar Villas is a leading boutique hotel for planet-conscious places to stay. The oceanfront holistic yoga-surf hotel on the Nicoya Peninsula's top-rated Santa Teresa Beach isn’t just “greenwashed” (eco-friendly in advertising only). Owners and staff are committed to following a long list of environmental practices every day. The luxury hotel cleans and reclaims its water used at the property to irrigate their organic gardens. A completely independent septic system recycles treated water that passes through a three-tank aerobic system using natural bacteria to clean the water, and then enters a drip irrigation system in the gardens which maximizes water usage. Sustainably farmed and recycled woods were used to create the hotel’s natural earth-friendly interiors for ecologically-constructed bungalows and villas. The elegantly designed accommodations offer tropical simplicity with plenty of windows and doors to open to sea breezes and enjoy nature. Granite stone tubs ringed by tropical gardens give an exotic touch to open-air bathrooms in the villas. Pranamar’s lush tropical gardens are completely organic; they use no herbicides or pesticides on the property. Much of the vegetation is “edible” – fruits, vegetables and herbs that supply the open-air restaurant with fresh, healthy cuisine. They grow mango, papaya, banana, starfruit, guanabana, passion fruit and Suriname cherries. During the dry season, melons and squashes underneath ornamental and fruit trees provide ground cover to help hold moisture. The herb and vegetable garden flourishes with mint, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, turmeric, arugula, mustard greens, tomatoes, chili peppers, okra, cucumber and eggplant. The hotel’s composting system completes the food cycle by turning the restaurant’s organic waste into natural fertilizer. All soaps, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, and even guests’ amenity shampoos, conditioners and bath soaps are biodegradable. Energy-saving light bulbs and appliances reduce electricity usage. Even the free-form swimming pool is eco-conscious: it’s filled with salt-water, meaning less chlorine and other chemicals. The difference is that Pranamar Villas’ owners, Susan Money, Greg Mullins and Stefano Allegri, created their hotel following a natural “Earth first” vision. They believe it is “important to consider the imprint we leave and the effects we have on our environment and planet.” The business of ecotourism aside, here’s some food for thought for all of us: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal” – John F. Kennedy By Shannon Farley

Traveling with kids. For the seasoned traveler, it’s no big deal, they say.

My sister is probably the most efficient family traveler I know. She has her work cut out for her with 2-year-old and 4-year-old girls. Like a well-oiled machine, she’s ready for every contingency as ifpreparing for a survival operation. Sticky hands or nowhere to wash before eating? She pulls packets of wet wipes from a handy pocket of her carry-all, akin to Mary Poppins’ bottomless carpetbag. Hungry? She keeps Ziploc bags of healthy snacks and small juices or waters at the ready. Cold? Hot? Or dirtied your shirt? She pulls out fresh changes of clothes and layers from the bag. Need a blanket for a nap? She has one of those too. Keep them entertained is the firm conviction my sister believes. A happy, entertained child is much nicer to travel with than a bored, cranky, screaming one. True, and it works. Coloring books, crayons, sticker sheets, paper, reading books, a portable kid’s computer programmed with educational games, and portable DVD players loaded with her girls’ favorite movies all fill my sister’s arsenal. Did you know that children can be the ideal travel companions? Their excitement at nearly everything, interest in the smallest of details, energy, adaptability and rapid ability to pick up other languages makes them fun and valuable too. You’ll find that cute smiling children break down all international language barriers and bring forth smiles and warmth from adults of all countries. On the flip side, when things aren’t going so great, crying children can elicit sympathy and open doors fast by adults who aren’t used to crying bouts.Any travel with children is an educational opportunity impacting more learning than in the classroom. Kids become students of life, culture, language, geography, history, nature, art and music when taken on journeys locally or across borders. Most of the wisdom on the internet offering helpful advice for traveling with children boils down to a top 10 core points to follow:

1. Make it fun, festive and happy! As in all things with kids, make it fun and interesting. For children, it’s 100% about the journey – every bug, plant, animal, rock, button or lever – along the way.
2. Plan. Pack, plan and prepare for every possible event – at least in small quantities.
3. Study. Know where you’re going, what the weather is like, activities you may do, any local cultural particularities you need to be aware of, medical contingencies, food in the area, etc. The internet stores a wealth of information. Traveler’s blogs and chat forums pertaining to the area give you first-hand insider knowledge and people you can ask questions. Involve older children in pre-trip studying and you not only increase the excitement, you also multiply your brain-storage capacity for details.
4. Pack lightly. I know, easier said than done when you have to follow point #2 to plan for every possible scenario. When flying, your carry-ons are your most important piece of luggage – here is where you need your changes of clothes, blanket, snacks, medicines, Band-Aids, and your entertainment arsenal (see above). Kids age 4 and up can manage their own carry-on bags, giving you more room to spread it all around. The latest kid’s carry-on I just saw is a red “Lightning McQueen” race car (think Disney’s “Cars” movie) mini plastic backpack-of-sorts on wheels. Fun and perfect for kids to easily wheel around. Make sure to check airline regulations in advance to know what you can and cannot take on board.
5. Feed them. Have snacks and water available at all times – in the car, at the airport, on the plane, etc. When you get past security at the airport, stock up on water bottles to bring on board the plane. Don’t rely on airline carts for your nourishment or you’ll be left waiting and wanting. There’s nothing worse than a hungry or thirsty child … or adult, for that matter.
6. Start early. Take advantage of higher energy in the mornings to start your travels. If afternoon nap time falls during your flight, try to make your child as comfortable as possible to sleep. Otherwise, when you land, get to your destination in as short a time as possible so you can all rest. I don’t advocate ever traveling on a night flight with children, unless you’re going to board the plane near normal bedtime of 8:00 or 9:00 pm and fly long-haul for 11-12 hours; be prepared to have a sleeping child on your lap most of the way. The “Start Early” tip applies to activities during your travels as well – go do that morning tour and leave the afternoon for relaxing.
7. Take breaks and take it easy. This one is important. You might be used to go-go-go, but your child might not be. Take breaks when possible. Make a mini-activity out of breathing deeply and stretching together to relax. Remember, a stressed-out parent cues a stressed-out child. When you get to your destination, follow the “take it easy” mode by choosing activities with short travel times.
8. Make the airport easy. This means arriving early for your flight – everything takes longer with kids. You’ll hopefully have already checked in on-line and have your seat assignments pre-set. You’ll have packed your carry-on bags security snag-free. Everyone dress comfortably with slip-on shoes, little jewelry, and no belts if you can help it, so security check is a breeze.
9. Wear them out. This applies more for airline travel than anything else. When you get through to the inner airport area and boarding gates, walk around, look at stuff, make it an adventure and discover new things. Your goal is to burn off extra energy before being strapped into an airplane seat for hours. Some airports even have play areas for kids.
10. Make them cozy. No matter where you are, when it’s time for bed, make your kids as cozy and comfortable as possible – preferably with that favorite blanket or toy – so they’ll sleep soundly and get rest. It won’t matter if it’s a tent, hotel, train, plane or boat, so long as they feel safe and comfortable.

The airline JetBlue offers parents a 7-tip guide for easy flying with kids, plus a free downloadable “Soar with Reading Activity Kit” from their website that includes reading material and videos to keep your kids entertained. Check out their link here. JetBlue is one of many airlines that fly to the Central American tropical paradise of Costa Rica. For travel to the popular top-international destination, turn to Team CRT for all of your travel needs. Team CRT gives you more than 20 years of expert guidance and personalized service; tell them what you want and they’ll design your dream vacation for you.
By Shannon Farley