People tend to get a little confused sometimes about how our Costa Rica vacation tours actually work. The problem usually comes in confusing our tours with the two other basic types that are mentioned below.
So, with the intention of clearing up confusion, here’s the low-down on the 3 basic types of Costa Rica vacation tours.
The Group Tour
There is a common misunderstanding about this Costa Rica vacation tour type and the ones that we do.
First of all the Group Tour starts on a set date. The tour arranger will try to sell x number of people to take the tour on that given date. There is no flexibility with regard to start date. Either you do it on the date offered, or not at all.
With a group tour of course you will be with a group, the entire time. In your accommodations, transportation, eating, touring and everything else…with a group.
A great example of group tours is the kind Chris Howard does. He does groups of retirees (or soon to be retired) who are considering Costs Rica as their retirement destination. In fact, he is the best around at these types of group tours. But he offers them on certain set dates throughout the year and will only do the tour if a minimum number sign up.
The Individually Designed Tour
This is the kind of tour that Package Costa Rica generally arranges. It differs greatly from the group tour in that we can start the tour on any date the customer wants, since everything is arranged specifically for that customer. That is a great advantage since we can accommodate any given arrival and departure date and time.
With the individually designed tour transportation can be in a number of pre-designed ways. It can be private, meaning a van and driver just for you and your family. It can be tourist van, which is with a company that specializes in moving tourists from one location in Costa Rica to another. This type of transportation does run on a schedule and is more economical (generally) than private transportation. We can also arrange self-drive tours, where a rental car is provided for you to do your own transportation.
Accommodations are set up specifically for the customer on individually designed tours. That gives us great flexibility in choosing the accommodations that are the best fit considering your vacation interests and budget.
Activities can also be selected specifically according to your interests. Most of the time the activities themselves will be with other tourists. That is because we outsource the actual operation of the activity. The tour operator we outsource to will be selling that tour to as many tourists as can be properly managed for a given date and time slot. Having said that, with individually designed tours we also have the flexibility of arranging private activities, which will carry an additional cost.
The Privately Guided Tour
This is the Cadillac version of the individually designed tour described above. It’s just as the name implies, a tour in which you will have a private guide who is with you every day of your trip. Often, the private guide will serve as the transportation provider as well as a tour guide. These types of tours are usually nature oriented and you will want a guide who is trained in that area, i.e., a naturalist guide. Package Costa Rica can certainly set up privately guided tours. It can be quite expensive, however.
You will find a number of itineraries on our Costa Rica Vacation Tours page. All of these are set up to be individually designed Costa Rica vacation tours. All are completely customizable. More often than not, a customer will start with one of those designs as a template. And then we will whittle at it until we carve something up that is just exactly what the customer wants.
Hope this explanation of the basic types of Costa Rica vacation tours was helpful.
If you have questions about any of the above, please put it in the comments, or feel free to call (866-284-2832), or email me at scott@packagecostarica.com.
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