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Visiting El Salvador During the August Holiday Week

Anyone planning to visit El Salvador in early August should be ready for one of the busiest holiday periods, when San Salvador’s patron saint celebrations spill into beaches, mountain towns, volcano routes and popular tourist areas across the country. The holiday period, known as Vacaciones Agostinas or Fiestas Agostinas, runs from August 1 to August 6 in San Salvador. It is tied to the capital’s patron saint festivities honoring the Divine Savior of the World, with August 6 marking the main holiday. While the celebration begins in the capital, its travel impact is felt well beyond the city. For foreign visitors, that is the main point. Early August can still be a good time to visit El Salvador, but it should not be treated like an ordinary low-season week. Hotels can fill faster, beach towns can get busier, roads out of San Salvador can slow down, and major attractions may draw more local visitors than usual. The upside is that travelers get to see El Salvador during a li...
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The View’s Ana Navarro Shares Warm Tribute to Costa Rica

Ana Navarro, the Nicaraguan-born political commentator known for her work on ABC’s The View and CNN, recently shared a warm public tribute to Costa Rica after spending several days here. Navarro posted photos and comments from her trip on Instagram , thanking Costa Rica for “magical days” and saying the country felt like the closest she could get, for now, to Nicaragua and the memories of her childhood. Her comments struck a personal note, given her background as a Nicaraguan exile and her long public identity as a Central American voice in U.S. media. The trip appears to have included time in Guanacaste, where Navarro said she rented a place at Reserva Conchal, one of the province’s best-known beach communities. Her posts also referenced time near the coast, swimming, walking on the beach, spending time with friends, and disconnecting from the pace of U.S. political media. Navarro’s Costa Rica posts were not political. They were more about rest, memory, nature, and the ap...
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U.S. Flags Costa Rica Overfishing Monitoring Failures

Costa Rica’s reputation as a green leader is facing new pressure after a 2026 U.S. fisheries report identified the country for failing to properly monitor part of its longline fishing fleet in the eastern Pacific. The report points to Costa Rican longline vessels operating in the area managed by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, known as IATTC. It says Costa Rica failed to meet observer coverage requirements in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Those rules require countries to ensure that at least 5% of fishing activity by longline boats larger than 20 meters (66 feet) includes a scientific observer. These observers collect information on catch, fishing activity and interactions with non-target species such as sea turtles, seabirds and sharks. The U.S. report says Costa Rica did not ensure that level of coverage. It also says it had no national onboard observer program in place by the end of 2024 and had not provided required observer reports or operational data to IATTC f...
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Costa Rica Adds Crocodile Warning Signs at Beaches and Rivers

Costa Rica has begun installing 55 warning signs at beaches, rivers, national parks and conservation areas where crocodiles and caimans are known to live, as the country prepares for one of its busiest domestic travel periods of the year. The signs are being placed ahead of Costa Rica’s midyear school vacation, which runs from July 6 to July 17. The campaign is aimed at both local families and international tourists visiting coastal and river areas during the break. Authorities said the warning signs are being installed in places where crocodiles and caimans are regularly present. The first sites include Sixaola, Puerto Viejo, Banano, Bananito, Matina, Mawamba, Caño Blanco, Lepanto and the ferry dock toward Playa Naranjo. Other areas identified for warnings include Manzanillo de Cóbano and the Bribri Indigenous Territory of Kéköldi. The goal is to prevent visitors from entering risky areas without realizing the danger. Crocodiles are often found near river mouths, estuaries,...
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Costa Rica to Start Major Road and Rail Works — and Braces for Gridlock

Costa Rica’s transport ministry is preparing to launch seven major road and rail projects in the coming months, and it is already warning drivers that several will advance at once — a convergence that could snarl traffic across the Greater Metropolitan Area and key routes to the airports and the coasts. Public Works and Transport Minister Efraím Zeledón said the tender for the San José–San Ramón corridor expansion is due to be published this month. The $770 million project will be split into two contracts awarded to different firms, mirroring the approach used on the Barranca–Limonal stretch. In September, the ministry expects to publish the tender for widening the San José–Cartago highway (Florencio del Castillo), a roughly $600 million project that, although presented as a private initiative by the firm MECO, must go to an international bid. The metropolitan electric train adds another front. The rail agency, Incofer, expects to tender the “Tibi” train in t...
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Costa Rica Airport Now Selling Fast Track Access

International travelers using Juan Santamaría International Airport now have a paid option to move through some of the terminal’s busiest checkpoints more quickly. Airport operator AERIS has launched SJO Fast Track, a new priority access service for passengers arriving in or departing from Costa Rica’s main airport. The service became available July 1 and costs $100 per person for a single use. For departing international passengers, the Fast Track access point is located before the immigration checkpoint, giving travelers entry to a priority lane during the airport’s busiest hours. For international arrivals, the service includes two priority access points: one before immigration and another before Customs. The airport says the system is meant to ease passenger flow at strategic points inside the terminal, especially during peak travel periods. It does not replace the required immigration, customs or security controls, but gives eligible travelers access to dedicated lanes be...
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Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and the Costa Rica Sloths Named After Them

As Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce draw global attention around a reported wedding celebration at Madison Square Garden in New York, Costa Rica’s role in the story is not a secret honeymoon, a private estate or a surprise beach visit. It is two baby sloths in Manuel Antonio. There is no confirmed public record of Swift and Kelce visiting Costa Rica together. Their clearest Costa Rica tie appears to be a lighthearted wildlife rescue story from The Sloth Institute, a Manuel Antonio nonprofit that named two orphaned sloths Taylor and Travis after the celebrity couple. The first, a baby two-fingered sloth named Taylor, was rescued on November 18, 2025, after hotel staff in Manuel Antonio found her clinging to an older three-fingered sloth. The pairing was unusual because two-fingered and three-fingered sloths are different species. With no mother nearby, and the baby too young to survive alone, the organization took her into care. Taylor needed round-the-clock feeding and close...
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