Jungle Travel Tips From A Costa Rica Insider

Image collected
Eco-luxury reaches new heights at Costa Rica’s Drake Bay Getaway Resort, a Forbes Travel Guide Recommended tropical retreat where the jungle meets the sea.

Built from the ground up by owners Yens Steller and Patrick Ludwig, the postcard-worthy property is as hospitable as it is stunning, with custom tours, personalized meals and attentive service from the innkeepers themselves.

Forbes Travel Guide caught up with Steller to find out how two engineers ended up running a sustainable resort, what to pack for a jungle getaway and why you should try chocolate-covered steak.

My dream was to become an astronaut, so I left to Seattle to try and become an astronaut, but I realized that I get seasick. So, I studied computer science instead and became a software engineer and eventually became a manager at a fast-growing company there.

I married Patrick in 2013. After many years of working as a software engineer — he was an aerospace engineer, he worked for Honeywell and I was a manager at that point working for a big software company — we just had enough of running around crazy all the time, so we said, “Let’s get married, let’s sell everything we got and move to Costa Rica.”

We bought 22 waterfront acres and built a hotel from the ground up. We just wanted to do something dramatically different. So, we went from a high-tech world to one where we have no knowledge at all.

What was your initial vision for Drake Bay Getaway?

We knew from the beginning we wanted to do something luxury and sustainable. And we knew the challenge was how to combine the two.

We like to call ourselves “eco-luxury” because there’s a serious commitment when you’re sustainable versus eco-friendly.

Sustainability is a way of designing and running your business, meaning the materials you use to build your hotel. All of our buildings are constructed with 80 percent wood and metal, with high ceilings and white roofs for ventilation.

So, if we ever decided we were done with the hotel business and [we wanted to] shut the hotel down, we would truly just disassemble the construction and the jungle would take over the land — it would be like we were never here.

From the very beginning, we wanted to do something that had no TV, no A/C and no pool. That was very important because everyone seems to have that at this point. But there’s a subset that wants an experience of a lifetime, and that’s what we’re trying to create.

People who come here are people looking for an experience, not just an ordinary, standard hotel. It’s not only about the tours. It’s not only about the view. It’s not only about the food. We, the hotel owners, my spouse and I, are always onsite. The owners are always in the hotel helping out.

Most of the people who visit our hotel are couples and families with children — it’s really split. As long as you want a lifetime experience for your family or your relationship, you are welcome here.
Source: https://www.forbes.com

Tags :

Share this news on:

Previous Story

Trending Topics

Archive