Sometimes, the best way to appreciate a place is to go somewhere else.

In a back-to-back trip last year, I left Belize after an awesome week spent snorkeling, exploring rain forests and catching lots and lots of fish. My next stop: the much more famous Costa Rica, where I looked forward to more of the same.  After all, Costa is the place with the great long-established reputation for eco-adventure, pristine environments, super-friendly people and gorgeous countryside.

I found the people all right. Hundreds of them. Seemingly everywhere I went. I wasn’t in the most touristy part of the country, but it didn’t matter, it’s just not that easy to get away in Costa anymore.

The people were as friendly as billed, overall, though they were definitely used to seeing gringos.  But I could not communicate with them very well in my broken Spanish, and it made me miss Belize, where everybody speaks English, even if it takes some sorting out…sometimes in Belize the beautiful rhythmic Caribbean accents of the ultra-laid back locals can be a little tough to catch the first time around, but their accents are so lyrical you will want to ask them to repeat themselves just to hear them speak anyway.

The tourist brochures bill Costa Rica as a place where almost everyone speaks English, and nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just not true, only the young people, and only those tied into the tourist trade for the most part, consistently speak English.

In the touristy towns like Tamarindo in Costa Rica, I had that feeling often that the locals were sizing me up, the way they used to in Mexico, where they look at gringos mostly as money. Friendly is one thing, sincere is another. And nobody in Belize offered to sell me drugs, another bonus.

I did do some fishing in Costa, too, after hearing about the great snook and snapper action around river mouths, or at least reputedly decent inshore fishing. I plied the shoreline hopefully evening after evening with my flyrod, even breaking out the spin gear to cast spoons in desperation. What I saw in the roily inshore Pacific waters of Costa Rica was a lot of nothing, and my flies went ignored. I saw far more people than fish, that’s for sure. I watched, sadly, as a local hauled in a big beautiful moray eel he hooked deeply on a handline, cut it open to retrieve his five-cent hook, before kicking it back in the water, dead.

Too many people. I thought what it would have been like to see that eel while snorkeling. Later, I snorkeled on a sunset sail cruise and saw few fish in the marginally clear Pacific waters, absolutely nothing like the epic reefs of Belize.

I know Costa has some good offshore fishing and terrific tarpon around certain river mouths on the Caribbean side, but good fishing isn’t widespread and easily accessible almost everywhere like it is in Belize. And guides are lot cheaper in Belize—my friends have gone bonefishing in Belize for as little as $50.

In Belize I had seen sea turtles cruise by and investigate me as I wade fished in water clear as triple-distilled vodka, great shoals of fish shifting and moving around me, sometimes fighting each other to chase my fly.

Sigh. Costa Rica is a marvelous country with great places to go well off the beaten path, but that genuine exotic adventure experience I seek is not easily available everywhere, you have to really dig to find it anymore.

Still, I do like Costa Rica and will go there to surf. But if I’m going to buy a vacation home, it’s not much of a contest for me: Belize will be it. Everyone you talk to looking for property or a house in Costa Rica has the same complaint:  that properties are generally higher than most of the U.S. anymore.  Yes it is paradise in terms of climate, but the waterfront and near-ocean properties in Costa—at least the ones close to any kind of amenities, stores, airports or restaurants—are now at higher than U.S. prices, mostly.  Granted, most of the U.S. is not 80 degrees in the winter, but still, most gringos come down hoping for the great prices that have not existed for over 15 years.

Those days are long gone for Costa Rica. I feel fortunate to have discovered Belize while it is still like Costa Rica was a few decades ago, in the eighties, where real estate prices are roughly a third to half as much. The cost-a Costa is simply too much for most folks anymore, and you don’t have to learn a foreign language to get by in Belize.

With the waves of Boomers coming, it surely won’t last forever, but for now, Belize is closer to how Costa was more like 20 years ago than it is now.

But don’t look past Moon Belize (Moon Handbooks) written by former Belize resident Joshua Berman. He’s delivers a guide to some of the best experiences in Belize, from hiking waterfall, jungle horse-rides and diving the reefs. The guide covers the ground well and will give you all the tools and insight you need to experience the best of Belize.

The Rough Guide to Belize 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) is a comprehensive guide to the country and covers all the top attractions. The book also takes a detailed look at the region’s history, cuisine, environment and diverse culture and comes complete with maps and plans for the entire country.

Interested in diving while in Belize? Lonely Planet’s Diving & Snorkeling Belize explores 82 of the best dive sites off Belize, with full-color photos and easy-to-read maps throughout. Belize is home to the world’s second-largest barrier reef and three of the Western Hemisphere’s four coral atolls. Shallow reefs ring the more than 450 cayes and islets, while towering walls plunge into the sea. More than 400 fish species and a host of corals and invertebrates shelter in the warm Caribbean waters.

For more info or questions please email us at blog@threepalmsbelize.com