Our Journey into Corporate Retreats, Part III: With a newly defined ONDA Offsite product, we’re eager to find our next perfect corporate clients! Covid represented a massive shift towards hybrid work and geographical independence for workers. Team offsites have emerged as a critical tool being used to ensure social cohesion and a shared sense of purpose amongst groups of colleagues who may not see each other in the same physical space all that frequently.  With our new ONDA Offsite product, we’re eager to find our next perfect corporate clients! How ONDA Offsites are different: Simplif ..read more

Our Journey into Corporate Retreats, Part II: We leaned into full hotel buyouts, hosting a variety of group events, from bachelor parties & weddings, to yoga retreats, family vacations, and finally, corporate retreats. In 2023, we repositioned our Director of Marketing to focus specifically on our Buyout product. We attracted our next batch of Buyout clients primarily via word of mouth, short-term vacation rental platforms, and cold outreach. Expanding our Audience What began primarily as wellness retreats quickly expanded into family vacations, bachelor(ette) parties and weddings, and c ..read more

I couldn’t be more excited to share the news that we’ve bought our second hotel – located in Monteverde, Costa Rica! While we’ve got a long way to go before we’re ready to welcome guests, I think it’s worth reflecting on all the hard work on the part of Team ONDA it took to get where we are. From day one, we’ve planned for ONDA to grow to 10 locations within Costa Rica. Our first location in Playa Grande was intended to be our proof of concept/sandbox. It’s where we’ve spent the last year watching people interact with the space we’ve created and then tweaking the space and service to optimize ..read more

Seasoned British traveler Anya shares her tips for traveling Colombia and Panama, and talks about making lasting friendships along the way. My name is Anya, I’m from Nottingham, England and I work in marketing & social media. After finishing university in Manchester, I decided to go travelling for 7 months around South and Central America. I have always loved to travel, doing multiple gap years prior and post school, exploring Southeast Asia, Canada, North America and Europe prior to this trip. I decided to visit Costa Rica partly because I was such a huge fan of Jurassic Park growing up ..read more

Seasoned British traveler Anya shares her tips for traveling Colombia and Panama, and talks about making lasting friendships along the way. My name is Anya, I’m from Nottingham, England and I work in marketing & social media. After finishing university in Manchester, I decided to go travelling for 7 months around South and Central America. I have always loved to travel, doing multiple gap years prior and post school, exploring Southeast Asia, Canada, North America and Europe prior to this trip. I decided to visit Costa Rica partly because I was such a huge fan of Jurassic Park growing up ..read more

Life is too short to do things that don’t fulfill you! After a near-death experience, Sophia decided to leave the US and move to Costa Rica. Here’s a peak into her life in Playa Grande. My name is Sophia Uhlig and I am a 22 year old Brazilian-American from Colorado. I absolutely love to travel. I have traveled all around the US (21 states), to Mexico, and through Europe to Iceland, Sweden, Greece and Italy. Before my 3 month stay at ONDA, the longest trip I had ever done was 3 weeks. As I’m approaching the end of the 3 months I had originally planned to spend here, I’ve decided to extend my ..read more

Recent college grad Sophia Grant ditched Corporate America to take a Costa Rican hiatus. Now after spending nearly 3 months in Playa Grande, she spills the tea on her favorite things to do in the area. Hi, my name is Sophia! I grew up in Colorado, and recently graduated from CU Boulder in May 2022 with a marketing degree, which I am happy to announce I did in fact use for 5 months after graduation. I have a little island cat named Azula and my favorite color is green. There is something to be said about a white Christmas, but personally I have always loved tropical holidays, whether that be in ..read more

Costa Rica is one of the world’s top surfing destinations thanks to consistent, high-quality waves with a variety of breaks and year round warm waters. Costa Rica is the perfect destination for both beginner and experienced surfers with plenty of surf spots up and down the Pacific and Caribbean coast providing point and beach breaks, lefts and rights, reefs and river mouths. To show you why Costa Rica has become such a popular spot for surfers, here are the 8 best surf spots in Costa Rica: Playa Grande Level: Beginner, Intermediate Type of Break: Beach Break Ocean Floor: Sand Playa Grande off ..read more

Costa Rica, known for its chilled vibe, tropical jungles, beautiful beaches and abundance of wildlife, has been awarded the 3rd ‘Most Desirable Country’ for tourism by Wanderlust Travel Awards. As part of the London Travel Week, the Wanderlust Travel Awards spotlight the industry’s ultimate stars, celebrating the best in travel for the past 20-years. Winners are decided either by an independent panel of expert judges, or by the most serious, passionate-travelers of them all, the Wanderlust readers. So now Costa Rica is not only one of the most biodiverse countries in the world (accounting for ..read more

With so many beaches to surf, mountains to climb and wildlife to spot, travelers are spoilt for choice when it comes to deciding where in Costa Rica to explore. So in this blog post, we provide some sample itineraries to help you decide where to visit when traveling to Costa Rica. If you are just starting to plan your trip to Costa Rica, read this blog post on the The Best Places to visit in Costa Rica If you like wildlife, this blog post highlights the Where to see Wildlife in Costa Rica Whilst Costa Rica isn’t a big country, it does take time to get around, and the spirit of the people here ..read more