Costa Rica Alojamiento

You will stay with a Costa Rican host family in a single room with breakfast, dinner, and laundry included where you will be the only student.

The majority of the homestays can be found in San Joaquín de Flores, a town within a short distance of the school – 15 minutes away from Heredia. This town of approximately 10,000 inhabitants is situated between the Juan Santamaría International Airport in San José and the city of Heredia (about 3 miles from both). San Joaquín is popular among those who wish to live outside of the metropolitan areas of San José and Heredia and who seek insight into the Costa Rican culture by living in a town that is typically “Costa Rican.” However, its proximity to larger cities (Heredia, Alajuela and San José ) still allows you to diversify your free time between visits to museums, theater, cinema and restaurants. There is an excellent, direct public bus route between San Joaquín and Heredia (15 minute bus ride) and San Joaquín and San José (40 minute bus ride).
All of the host families are of the middle class by Costa Rican standards. Even though students discover a simpler way of life, you can still find TVs, DVDs, and internet. All of our families are accustomed to housing foreign students.

The selected families are patient and make an effort to help the students learn Spanish as a second language. The word “family” should not be taken too literally, because your family could be a single parent, a married couple, or an elderly individual.

You may arrive at your homestay as early as 2:00 p.m. on Sunday and must leave at the end of your studies no later than Sunday morning. If you wish to remain additional time in the homestay, you must request permission from the school. If it is possible to stay longer (if there are no new students for the family for the upcoming week), the additional cost is $30 per night.

The host families genuinely enjoy receiving students and their impression is that the students are very polite, grateful, and kind. The families understand that each student is different and try to be flexible by accommodating your specific requests and/or diets.

Yet, with that said, we do ask that students be aware of cultural differences and expectations in order for the families to also feel respected:

• As Costa Rica is an early to bed/early to rise society, we ask that you do not stay out past 1:00 a.m. And if you do stay out late that you come into the house quietly so as not to disturb family members
• You should bring your own toiletries and personal items (i.e. towels, soap, shampoo).
• You should keep your room orderly; the host family will clean the room, change the sheets and provide laundry service for dirty clothes
• Smoking should be done outside of the house unless told otherwise
• Overnight guests and the consumption of drugs are absolutely forbidden and will result in you losing your homestay privilege

These norms also apply to the homestays in Monteverde and Heredia. On the other hand, please note that the homestays in Monteverde, and in particular, Flamingo Beach, are more humble than those in Heredia. They are, however, all clean and carefully selected