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Hello guys I am a newbie to this forum as well as CR. I’m a 40 year old Asian male about to book my first trip to CR and have a couple questions.
First- Is it safe to travel alone? I plan on staying the SL my whole trip and pretty much stay where the action is.
Second - Is it absolutely necessary to know Spanish to get by?
All help will be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Welcome!

Your first trip is always exciting. Enjoy every minute.

Yes. Costa Rica is perfectly safe to travel alone. Take normal travel precautions and you'll be perfectly fine.

SL is wonderful. And great for a first timer. You can literally spend the whole time in the SL hanging at the bar, pick a girl when you like and walk up to your room.

Taxis are easy to find and will take you to any massage parlor or anywhere else you need. SL staff is excellent and very helpful.

Spanish is very helpful. but you can get by on little Spanish if need be. Especially with the girls. Many of them speak enough English to get the job done. And if you brush up and learn a couple phrases, you'll survive fine.

The only real difficulty without Spanish is using the Taxis. Assuming that you are spending most of your time going between the airport, SL, and massage parlors. You should be fine.

Aside from spending a little time to memorize a couple common phrases (if you search, there is a good post on the key Spanish phrase you need on here), I'd recommend picking up a Spanish to English dictionary. Worse comes to worse, you can flip through it and have a basic conversation with a couple words you look up. Enough to find the bathroom or tell a taxi driver what you need.

Best of luck!

Thanks for that detailed response I really appreciate it. Sounds like it’s gonna be a great time.

Costa Rica (in general) is safe if proper precautions are taken.

San Jose is likewise generally safe with precautions but there areas you shouldn't walk around alone at night.

I would encourage you to get out and about. See some of the city. Check out other venues.

Taxis. There are basically two types of taxis - "official" (medallion or licensed) taxis, which are red (rojo) and have a triangle with a number on them; and 'pirate' ('pirata')which hang out in front of gringo hangouts and sometimes mimic 'real' taxis (red car).

The reason Uber has become so popular in Costa Rica is that taxistas (both 'rojo' and pirata') have gained a reputation as thieves and cheats - as well as dirty cars, rude behavior, etc.

First thing is that the taxis around the gringo hangouts love to quote you a price in dollars far in excess of the actual metered fare and most (many) gringos don't realize it. For example, from the SL / LA area to the HDR is a metered ride of 658 colones (last time I did it in September 2017). That's about $1.17. I've been quoted anywhere up to $5.

So, the first thing is to tell the cab driver 'maria por favor' which in Costa Rica means 'turn on the meter'. No meter? Get out. Flag down a cab on a major street.

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Any opinion or observation in the post above is purely presented for entertainment purposes and does not promote "sexual tourism" or "human trafficking". The laws of Costa Rica apply to all activities in Costa Rica. No warranty is expressed or implied. Void where prohibited by law. Your experience, observations or perspective may be different.

In exile in pu*sy prison

Hotel del ray or sl is what I’m debating. How far are the 2 places from each other? Thanks for the help guys

its walking distance
if you say its your first time there almost every guy at SL will offer to walk over w you
better to walk at night w a friend or two especially in the parks

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im way deep into nothing special
riding the crest of a wave breaking just west of hollywood