What Así o más pura vida is
A short list of good places in Costa Rica, with the owner's WhatsApp number beside each one. Nothing more than that, and nothing less.
What this is
Costa Rica is full of good places almost nobody finds. The twelve-room hotel the family runs themselves, the soda that grew into a restaurant, the man who has been taking people fishing for thirty years and has never had a website. They are not in the first Google results because they cannot pay what it costs to be there, not because they are bad.
This site is the list of those places. Search by area, by kind of roof, or by what you want to do; open the listing, and there is the price, how you actually get there, and the WhatsApp number to message the owner. You write to them, not to us.
How a place gets in
There is one bar to clear and it is the same for everyone: 4.0 or higher on Google with at least ten reviews, or someone from the team went there. A new place with no reviews yet comes in through the second door, not the first — but it comes in because we went, not because it paid.
A place that does not clear the bar does not get in. There is no cheaper version of being here for the ones that do not qualify.
Who makes it
A small Costa Rican team, working from Costa Rica. The site is paid for by the businesses listed on it: a flat monthly fee, the same for the four-room hotel and the forty-room one.
That is the whole model. It is why we can say what follows.
What this site does not do
Four things almost every travel site does, and that will never happen here.
- We take no commission Not from you, not from the business. Whatever you arrange with the owner is between the two of you, at their price. Nobody is adding a percentage on top.
- The top spot is not for sale Order is not for sale. No place ranks higher by paying more, because everyone pays the same.
- We do not write reviews The stars you see are Google's, with a link to the profile so you can read them yourself. We do not invent opinions from people who do not exist.
- We do not ask you to sign up No account, no cart, no «only two rooms left». We do not store your card because we never ask for it.
How to read a listing
Every place has its own page with what you need before you write: the real price, what is included, local directions for getting there, and the Google rating with a link to the profile.
The red button opens WhatsApp with a message already written that says where you came from. That is deliberate: the owner knows the message came from here, and you do not have to explain where you got the number.
Know a place that should be here?
If there is a good place missing, tell us which one. We will go, and if it qualifies it gets in.
Message us on WhatsAppDo you own a place?
If you have a hotel, a hostel, a restaurant, a bar, or you run tours, here is what it costs to be listed and what you get.
List your business