Booking
Booking terms
What it costs to hold a spot, what happens if you or I have to cancel, and what you will be asked to sign. In plain words, because you should be able to read them before you decide rather than after.
Where I can accept bookings
Some states require a company selling travel to register with them before it can sell to people who live there. I offer tours only in states where I am eligible to do so, and I do not solicit, offer or sell travel services to residents of California, Florida, Hawaii or Washington.
This follows where you live, not where a trip departs from, so it applies to every departure whatever country it begins in.
If that changes, this page will say so.
Deposit and balance
Nothing is due when you reserve. Every departure has a date by which it is confirmed to run — you will find it on that departure's own page — and no money is collected before then.
Once a departure is confirmed, a deposit holds your spot, and it is non-refundable from that point. That is not a penalty clause — confirming the trip is what starts the money going out to the lodges, the guides and the transport, and it does not come back.
The balance is due ninety days before departure. The deposit and the exact date differ from one trip to the next, so where a departure has them settled you will find them on its own page.
I send an invoice once the departure is confirmed, and it sets out how to pay.
If you cancel
Refunds depend on how close to departure you cancel, because what has already gone out to the lodges and the guides does not come back:
- More than 90 days before departure — full refund of everything paid beyond the deposit.
- 31 to 90 days before departure — 50% refund of everything paid beyond the deposit.
- 30 days or less before departure — no refund.
The deposit itself is non-refundable in every case. The schedule above applies only to what you have paid beyond it.
If the tour is cancelled
A departure that has not attracted enough people is cancelled on its confirmation date. Because nothing has been collected by then, nothing is owed and there is nothing to refund — you simply hear from me on the day.
If I cancel a confirmed trip of my own accord, you get back everything you have paid, whatever my reason for cancelling.
If it is cancelled by something outside anyone's control — weather, natural disaster, political unrest, a strike, a government decision, a pandemic — you get back everything except what has already gone out and cannot be recovered. I will not pretend the lodge money comes back when it does not, and I will not keep the part that does.
What I cannot cover either way is everything you booked around the trip — flights above all. That is what travel insurance is for.
Travel insurance
Strongly recommended, and not a formality. The deposit is non-refundable from the day you pay it and the refund schedule tightens as the trip approaches, so a policy covering trip cancellation, medical treatment and emergency evacuation is what stands between an unlucky month and a lost fare.
The lodges are rural. Costa Rica is not a hard place to fall ill in, but getting you out of one of these valleys in a hurry is expensive.
Rooming
Prices are per person, double occupancy. If you book on your own you will share a twin room with another participant of the same gender, and couples are never split up.
A single room is sometimes possible, depending on how a departure fills. It is never guaranteed — rooms are reserved a long way ahead, and a busy departure leaves no slack — so ask early rather than assume.
The agreement you will sign
Before departure you sign a Participant Agreement and Liability Waiver. It covers this same ground in more detail, along with health disclosure, assumption of risk, your responsibilities on the ground, and whether you are happy for me to use photographs of you.
This page is the plain-language summary. That document is the binding one, and I send it to you — you should never have to go looking for the terms you agreed to.
Still deciding?
Ask me anything before you commit. I would far rather answer a question now than have you find out something on the ground.