With no doubt this year has been life-changing for many and the travel industry has experienced the biggest decline.
According to Wikipedia, with a $1.92B a year tourism industry, Costa Rica is one of the most visited nations in the Central America. And then COVID hit. Borders closed. Costa Rica went into isolation.
International tourism was at a complete stall until November 1st, 2020 when the country opened its borders again to all international visitors.
But...if anybody will remember one positive thing from the COVID year, it's that the office life, as we know it, has changed forever.
In order to attract remote workers in hopes to revive local economies, over a dozen countries around the globe introduced remote work programs. You can travel and stay in the countries that support remote workers anywhere from one to two years. Such programs are offered in Mauritius, Cayman Islands, Aruba, Estonia, Bermuda, Georgia, and more.
Even though Costa Rica is not one of them, we still saw an increase in inquiries from foreign travelers who want to escape their home offices in the US, Canada and even Costa Rica inland itself, and work from the beach location instead.
Internet connection challenges
Up until November 2020, Out of Office Villa was not set up to accept guests who needed high speed internet to handle work meetings and conference calls. The telecommunications infrastructure in Tierra Pacifica community, where our villa is located, was dated and because of the remote location, we were limited to what we could do to provide good quality WiFi.
Our temporary solution for the past year has been Kolbi mobile data plan with 50GB data cap and the speeds barely holding up to 8mbs. Once the data cap was reached, the speed would drop to the unusable 1-2mbs. So you can imagine the challenges of unconnected life. Nonetheless, none of our guests complained. They actually loved the privacy and the disconnect that Out of Office Villa could offer.
Fiber optics infrastructure
Exactly a year ago, in November 2019, I (the owner of Out of Office Villa) took on a what seemed an impossible project - research and implement fiber optics infrastructure in Tierra Pacifica. One might say, why the headache? How is that possible to do it remotely from the U.S. with no Spanish knowledge (Google translate has been my best friend this past year)?
Well...when you live in a hi-tech area such as Silicon Valley (we've since then relocated to Nevada), nothing seems impossible when it comes to tech. And I was determined to make it happen because we heard stories that several telecommunications service providers in Costa Rica are trying to get Guanacaste on fiber optics infrastructure. So the opportunity was there, we just needed to investigate and uncover what it would take to make it happen.
After hundreds of email communications, thousands of WhatsApp messages, and multiple assessments of service providers and budgetary requirements, I am proud to state that mission has been accomplished. Tierra Pacifica has fiber optics infrastructure and is ready to connect services to home owners.
You can see some work in progress images below.
Thank you to the awesome team
I cannot thank enough the trusted telecommunications partners that we worked with who built the infrastructure - Access Point Solutions and service providers Coopeguanacaste who supported the project from technical standpoint and provided the fiber optics connection. Also, thank you to the team on site who was ears and eyes during the process while I was managing everything from the United States. And of course, the homeowners who believed in the project and funded the network build out. All of this would not have been possible with any of the above.
We were eager to get Out of Office Villa onto the high-speed internet and we were one of the first ones to subscribe to the services offered by Coopeguanacaste and experienced the fiber optics speeds ourselves (remotely testing the network).
Travel to work remotely
So if you want to travel to the tropical Costa Rica and work from there, we are ready for you. Drop us a note and we are happy to answer any questions that may arise.
Or..if you want to travel and not worry about work, our property will serve this purpose extremely well. It's meant for relaxation and escape. And even if you do have to work, you will not want to when you get there.
Looking forward to hosting you soon.
Loreta
Owner, Out of Office Villa
ask@outofofficevilla.com
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