I have written a guidebook, The New Key to Costa Rica, since 1982. I update it every two years. When the book became a best seller in 1990, I was afraid that the book might be aiding and abetting the destruction of the natural wonders it was extolling. So, with co-author Anne Becher, we developed a system that rated lodgings on their commitment to conservation, to preserving local cultures and fostering local economies.
In the last ten years, the Small Grants Program of the Global Environmental Facility has funded campesino conservation organizations in Costa Rica to have their own ecolodges. These destinations represent what I had always wanted to see in Costa Rican tourism: locally-owned lodges that conserve natural resources, provide great adventures, and give visitors a chance to meet real Costa Ricans. Now I feature these lodges in my book.
All the community ecolodges banded together in 2001 to form ACTUAR, the Costa Rican Association for Rural Tourism. I am now their US sales representative. Because many tourists contact me through my website when they are planning their trips, i make sure that they know about these great community-based projects. People who contacted me for travel planning advice have generated over $200,000 in income for ACTUAR over the last year and a half. That income allows ACTUAR to serve as an interface between the communities and tourists, and provides income for ACTUAR members and their families.
All the ACTUAR member destinations
I would love to see tourism develop in El Salvador in a way that honors the people I know there, that shows the living history that continues to be made there. i would love to see tourism that embraces the meaning of the Salvadoran civil war, rather than trying to negate it or forget it. I would love to see tourism be a catalyst for reforestation, recycling, water conservation, and organic agriculture, as it has been in Costa Rica. I would love to harness the economic power of all the people who are looking for meaningful travel to steer El Salvador away from the water-guzzling resorts and golf courses that have ruined the northwestern beaches of Costa Rica.
* Graduate of the University of California at Berkeley in Social Sciences and Spanish, 1969
* First traveled to Costa Rica in 1970, lived in there from 1973-76 and 1982-92. Volunteered in the clinic of the Organzación para la Ayuda de Refugiados Salvadoreños 1982-84.
* Author of The New Key to Costa Rica since 1982, revised and updated every two years, now in its 18th edition. .
* Winner of the Friend of Costa Rica Award of the Association of Costa Rican Travel Professionals
* Co-author of the Key to Costa Rica Sustainable Ecotourism Rating System 1990-1996. The New Key to Costa Rica was the first guidebook to rate lodgings on their commitment to conservation, to preserving local culture, and to fostering local economies. In 1998, the government of Costa Rica became the first government to adopt a similar system, the Certification of Sustainable Tourism.
* Green travel planning consultant for independent travelers to Costa Rica since 1996.
* North American representative of ACTUAR, the travel agency created by grassroots conservation organizations that have built and operate their own ecolodges and nature reserves.
* Invited by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science to speak at their colloquium, Ecotourism: Measuring the Impacts in 1996.Gave presentations about community-based ecotourism at the World Ecotourism Congress in Chicago in February 2003, at the Sustainable Resources Conference at the University of Colorado in September 2003 and at the College of the Atlantic in November 2005, as well as talks in numerous bookstores and libraries.
* Focusing trainer since 2000. From January through May 2007, taught focusing and Non-Violent Communication to CRIPDES communities in the Bajo Lempa region, headquartered in San Carlos. Also taught NVC with Provida communities in San Salvador, Nejapa, Ilobasco and Berlín.
