I’m sure that no matter where you live, the homes in your neighborhood were a lot cheaper in the 1980s than they are now. $250,000 would buy a heck of a house in 1980 anywhere in the world and would have bought you a mansion in Costa Rica. Now, $250K buys you a nice condo in Florida and a nice house in Atenas, Costa Rica, but not a mansion.
Not everyone looks at a shipping container and thinks, “I’d like to live in one of those.” But Dave and Shannon Playfair are no ordinary folks: They are the husband-and-wife proprietors of EcoVida Properties in Playa Bejuco, Puntarenas, on the central Pacific coast.
The idea was simple: build a house on the land where I grew up, but responsibly. We weren’t going to cut down a single tree or bush. We would do everything possible to not only have a carbon-neutral, but also a carbon-negative footprint, and be both environmentally responsible and self-sufficient.
One of the Nicoya Peninsula’s best-known wildlife destinations is facing renewed pressure from illegal hunters, after camera traps placed inside or near Refugio Nacional...