Las Catalinas

“The weekend crowd changes the feeling”

Las Catalinas is a planned beach community north of Tamarindo designed from its foundation to be car-free — streets are too narrow for vehicles, parking is on the perimeter, and movement within the town is by foot or bicycle along paths that connect the beach to the plaza to the residences without a road in between. The design produces a town experience that is structurally different from anything else on the Guanacaste coast, where the standard model is a resort compound or a strip development along a coastal road. The architecture follows a Mediterranean-influenced vernacular — whitewashed walls, terracotta roofs, arcaded passages — that is self-consistent enough to avoid looking arbitrary. The beach at Playa Danta in front of the town is calm, protected by the headland, and suitable for paddleboarding and kayaking. The dry tropical forest trail network on the hills behind the town is genuinely good terrain for mountain biking. The overall effect is of a place that was thought about before it was built, which distinguishes it from most beach development in Costa Rica.