Costa Rica is a country that both Michael and I have been wanting to visit for quite some time. Many of our friends have been there and suggested this would be an ideal country to travel around "sans tour" to get our feet wet before we travel to Thailand in a couple of years.

Research on the Net was great - in no time at all we had our flight booked, as well as accommodations at 5 different locations. Thanks to TripAdvisor, we were able to read reviews on all of the accommodations prior to booking.