What Will a New Airport Mean for This Quiet Stretch of Costa Rican Coast?

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Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007
Osa Province, Costa Rica

Read more about Costa Rica in International Living Postcards--your daily escape

It is expected that Costa Rica’s newest international airport, scheduled to open in 2010, will be the key to unlocking the tourism and development potential of this country’s southern coast. Right now, the area where the new airport is planned is accessible to mass tourism only via a four-to-five-hour drive from San Jose.

The planned airport is to be built roughly five kilometers (about three miles) south of the city of Palmar Sur in the Sierpe Valley. Along this part of the coast, lush jungled mountains loom over long, pristine stretches of beach. These are Costa Rica’s most romantic and jaw-dropping beaches, in my opinion, and it seems a shame that they may soon be peppered with tourist resorts and residential complexes…but such is the price of progress. Let’s hope the government keeps its eco-values front and center on this one.

The airport is planned to open in stages; the first, in 2010, will allow international flights with a maximum capacity of 50 passengers. Eventually, plans are to have a runway capable of accommodating even the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A-380.

Although the first stage of the airport is still more than two years from completion, it is expected that investors will jump in early (i.e., now) to buy real estate while prices are still relatively low. Once the airport is completed and the wave of tourism begins, developers eager to cash in will no doubt send property values skyrocketing.

Suzan Haskins
The Latin America Insider, International Living

P.S. There is one resource you shouldn’t be without as you investigate Costa Rica--IL’s brand-new Costa Rica: The Owner’s Manual. It’s the latest and greatest in our Owner’s Manual series…at the printer’s as I write. Order now…before the manual is printed…and you get a 25% discount. You won’t get the manual for a few weeks…until the printing and binding are finished…but a PDF version will be rushed to you ASAP…to tide you over until your copy arrives in the mail. Once the new Costa Rica: The Owner’s Manual hits the IL bookstore, it will sell for $69. It will never again be offered at this low, pre-printing price of $51.75.