10 Things to Do and See When Travelling to Costa Rica

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travelling to Costa RicaTravelling to Costa Rica can be such an enriching experience for many reasons. Costa Rica is a gorgeous country nestled right in the middle of Central America with Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south. Sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Ocean, the country’s close proximity to water and the Equator has allowed for lush rainforests to cover the country with greenery. Because of Costa Rica’s exotic terrain, beautiful beaches, abundant animal life, and friendly community, it is a tourist destination for people all over the world.

There aren’t many countries where you can climb a volcano, relax on a remote sandy beach, and zip-line through the rainforest in just a few days. You can do all of this, and much more, when you visit Costa Rica. Whether you decide to travel during the wet season, or the dry season, the country will not disappoint. To ensure that you get the most out of your trip to Costa Rica, we’ve outlined ten things to do and see when travelling to Costa Rica.

5 Things to Do When Travelling to Costa Rica

1. Experience Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve

Whether you want to walk the forest floor or zipline through the forest canopy, experiencing Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve should be on your list of things to do when travelling to Costa Rica. Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve was named for the nearby town of Monteverde and consists of 26,000 acres of cloud forest – a subtropical forest known for having consistent cloud cover due to moisture. With over 850 species of flora and over 150 species of fauna in the forest, you are sure to see some interesting sights on your visit.

2. Enjoy Nightlife in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

The Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca is a popular destination for tourists visiting Costa Rica. At night, the city comes to life with bamboo bars, Reggae music, and vivacious nightlife. There is something for everyone in this town. Whether you want to adventure inland to the rainforest, enjoy surfing and drinks on the beach, or visit the black sand beach of Playa Negra for a more offbeat adventure, all can be done in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca.

3. Explore La Paz Waterfall Gardens

The La Paz Waterfall Gardens promise to wow even the most travelled explorer. The Gardens features five waterfalls that are all accessible by safe and easy hiking trails. If hiking is not your thing, you can check out the aviary that features a vast number of bird species. You can also see monkeys, jaguars, pumas, other large cats, frogs, and orchids in this one park. Established in 1998, the entirety of the Gardens opened to the public in 2000. Since then it has become a thriving tourist destination nestled on 70 acres of beautiful Costa Rican jungle.

4. Relax in Tabacón Hot Springs

On more than 900 acres of reserved tropical land, the Tabacón Hot Springs are a modern marvel. The water is heated by a stream of hot springs that run through marshes and grasslands from the Arenal Volcano. Thanks to one man’s adventurous attitude and ability to think outside of the box, the Tabacón Hot Springs Spa was established in the late 1980s. After a complete overhaul in 1991 that took over two years, these relaxing hot springs are now surrounded by acres and acres of Costa Rican native flora, a restaurant, and spa making this one of the most beautiful and relaxing tourist destinations in the country.

5. Take a Tour of a Coffee Plantation

A lesser known fact about Costa Rica is that coffee beans are a huge export and one of the country’s most profitable crops. Thanks to the country’s location and climate, coffee plantations are abundant which gives tourists multiple opportunities to take a tour. Most of the coffee plantations are in the Central Valley of Costa Rica and each plantation offers a different experience, so if you’re a true fan of coffee you may want to check out more than one.

5 Things to See When Travelling to Costa Rica

1. The Nicoya Peninsula

The Nicoya Peninsula, which juts out into the Pacific Ocean, is a well-known spot in Costa Rica for its beautiful beaches. While it is a popular tourist destination, and will be crowded, it is worth a visit. The Nicoya Peninsula is one of the world’s Blue Zones and there are numerous nature reserves and wildlife refuges to visit on the peninsula itself. During certain times of the year, you can even see Leatherback turtles come to nest and hatch at Playa Grande on the peninsula.

2. The Arenal Volcano

If you are in the Tabacón area visiting the hot springs we mentioned above, you will definitely see the Arenal Volcano in the distance. The volcano is a sightseer’s dream from its almost perfectly symmetrical shape to its frequent activity since the 1960s. The Arenal Volcano has been inactive since October 2010; however, it could turn active any time and erupt soon after due to its placement and the high amount of water in its magma. Regardless of its activity, if you are in the area then you will be able to see the Arenal Volcano from afar or take a closer look with a guided tour.

3. Corcovado National Park

Further south in Costa Rica lies the “crown jewel” of Costa Rica’s system of national parks — Corcovado National Park. Encompassing the largest primary forest on the American Pacific coastline, the park gives vegetation and local fauna a place to thrive. The waters in and around the parks also promote ecological diversity. Baleen whales, including humpbacks, winter, and breed in Drake Bay which is relatively close to Corcovado National Park.

4. Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge

The Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge is another area of Costa Rica that promotes the preservation of wildlife and local flora; however, the Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge sits over wetlands unlike other national parks and reserves mentioned in this article. This makes it a unique site for migratory waterfowl. It also makes it a unique experience for travellers as you can only explore the area by boat. In addition to migratory waterfowl, this wildlife reserve is also home to large cats, monkeys, and many other native species.

5. Tortuguero National Park

People know about the Tortuguero National Park in Costa Rica for a few reasons. For one, the park is extremely remote and is only accessible by airplane or boat. Regardless of how difficult it is to get to Tortuguero National Park, it is still the third most visited park in the country. With 11 different habitats within the park, it boasts a massive variety of biological diversity. When you visit Tortuguero National Park you can experience the rainforest, mangrove forest, swamps, beaches, and even lagoon environments in a single trip. While visiting Tortuguero National Park, try to observe the egg-laying of both green and leatherback sea turtles which occur in the park.

Traveling to Costa Rica can be an enriching experience thanks to the variety of environments available to explore. A Costa Rican vacation can be made even more wonderful by the friendliness of the Costa Rican people, called Ticos. With so much to do and see in one country, there is something for everyone. If you are looking for an exciting vacation that can be a learning experience and a relaxing getaway, make sure to visit Costa Rica.

At Number8, we have a nearshore development office in San Jose, Costa Rica. Our development team travels throughout Costa Rica, for both business and pleasure, to enrich their lives with the country’s endless beauwildlifelife, and conservation efforts. If you are interested in learning more about our company, and what we do in Costa Rica, give us a call at (502) 890-7665 today!

6 Tips to Help You Nail A Remote Job Interview

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remote job interviewIn 2019, more and more companies are hiring remote workers in addition to an in-house team or making the shift to exclusively employing remote workers. With this shift in the hiring process comes a shift in the interviewing process as well. Regardless of how comfortable you are with face-to-face interviews, a remote job interview is a completely different experience.

While being at home can be a comfort, it can also cause you to let your guard down. This can translate to lack of motivation or lack of preparedness in a remote interview environment. There are other factors that should be considered when interviewing remotely that aren’t present at an in-house interview. Some factors include background noise, technical difficulties, and outside distractions. Because the differences between an in-house interview and remote job interview are so vast, we thought you may like some tips to help you nail your next remote job interview.

6 Tips to Help You Nail a Remote Job Interview

1. Prepare Your Interview Area

It is important to look professional during a remote job interview just as you would for an in-house interview. While your clothing would reflect your level of professionalism face-to-face, the area in which you conduct a remote interview reflects that. Be sure your interview area is clean, organized, and does not reflect poorly on you as a potential hire.

It is also important to ensure that you will not have any distractions during your interview. If you have children, try to set up a play date so they are out of the house. If you have neighbors close by, ensure that your home’s windows are closed to prevent a nearby lawn mower from causing a distraction.

2. Dress Appropriately

Despite the fact that you are interviewing from home and may only be visible from the waist up, it is important to dress appropriately for a remote job interview. Getting ready for a remote job interview in the same way you would for an in-house interview will help you get into a professional mindset. More often that not, a confidence boost also comes with getting ready. By dressing appropriately, you also prevent any embarrassment from occurring should you have to get up during your interview.

3. Research Your Potential Employer

An interview, despite the location, works two ways. It’s a chance for your potential employer to learn more about you and it’s also an opportunity for you to learn more about the company you may one day work for. Research the company’s beginnings, recent news surrounding the company, and the person who is going to be interviewing you. By having some knowledge of the company on hand, you will look well prepared and interested in your potential employer. This knowledge will also make conversation around the company flow more naturally.

4. Take Care to Prepare Your Computer

There is nothing worse than being late to a remote interview or having your computer crash mid-interview. Prior to your interview be sure that you’ve downloaded and done a trial run of the interviewing software. Set the window that you will be viewing your potential employers through at the top of your screen, centered under your webcam. This positioning helps to give the impression that you are making eye contact with your potential employer instead of looking down throughout the interview. Ensure there are no programs running in the background that could cause your computer to lag and that all your chat features are turned off, so no pop-ups appear during your interview.

5. Prepare Your Own Questions

As we stated in our third tip, a job interview is every bit a chance for you to learn more about your potential employer as it is for them to learn more about you. Come into your interview with a prepared list of questions. These questions may revolve around why the company is looking for remote work, what benefits they offer to their remote employees, and how they will work with you to ensure you’re trained correctly for the job while working out of office. You can also ask questions surrounding how many employees currently work remotely for your potential employer, what sort of tools they use to promote collaboration between in-house and remote team members, and if there are potential group meetings or team building experiences that you should expect to be a part of.

6. Explain Your Motivation for Wanting to Work Remotely

For a lot of people, working from home seems like an easy way to get work done without having to do much work; however, remote work is quite the opposite. Not being in a designated work environment can make it harder to stay focused and on-task. It is important to make it clear to your potential employer that you are a motivated individual who is prepared to successfully work remotely. Perhaps you want to work remotely because you need a more flexible schedule. Perhaps you’re the type of person who works better in an area away from office distractions.

Whatever the reason, it is important to explain your motivation from wanting to work remotely. Do not treat it as the elephant in the room. Instead, tackle it early on and own it fully. Confidence and honesty will help potential employer see that you’re serious and would be an asset to the company.

Remote interviews can be intimidating, like in-house interviews, which is why it is so important to prepare for them. By following our six tips above, you should be off to a strong start during your next remote job interview. In the end, confidence and preparedness are the two most important factors to nailing a job interview. With these six tips, we hope you’ll be more prepared and more confident about interviewing from a remote location.

At Number8, we know quite a bit about hiring remotely with our nearshore location in San Jose, Costa Rica. With over 18 years of experience in the field of software development, our experience spans across many sectors. We commit to recruiting and hiring IT professionals who show immense talent and developers with vast experience. Learn more about who we are and see what job opportunities we currently have available.

3 Things That Set Number8 Apart

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With so many options for IT consulting and agile software development, why choose Number8?

1. We offer a blended model.

At Number8, we offer all the benefits of typical offshore tech support with nearshore capabilities. Our headquarters are based out of Louisville, Kentucky and we have technical professionals throughout the U.S. We also have more than 100 associates in a total of six countries including our offshore team in Latin America and nearshore office location in San Jose, Costa Rica. Whether the need is local or can be handled off-site, we are able to work with our U.S. clients in their timezone and language with the best possible mix of development assistance.

2. We treat our employees differently.

It’s our mission at Number8 to give our associates and IT contractors the opportunity to develop a rewarding and challenging career while enjoying the best possible work-life balance. We pride ourselves on our employee retention rate and value building long term partnerships with our clients as a result of it.

We also understand just how important family is and the ability to have a flexible work schedule is a major benefit of working remotely. For example, one of our Junior Developers John Lewis, who came onboard about a year ago, has recently decided to shared his story with the Number8 family. After the passing of his wife last April, he now lives in Costa Rica with his three children.

“N8 is an incredibly unique company and I think that comes from its foundations. The entire team as well as my clients have been incredibly supportive during what has been a depressive period for me. I couldn’t work for a month, and though I thought I would lose my job I didn’t. I can’t even count the number of times someone has asked me if I needed anything. Though Christmas was particularly hard for us, as it was my wife’s favorite holiday and our gifts from the U.S. were stuck in customs, Number8 surprised us again. Literally the only things under the tree were the gifts that Number8 gave to my children. I am so grateful to Number8 for all the resources that they’ve put at my disposal. I honestly cannot express it any more because it is so emotional for me. To everyone who has supported me, I can’t say thank you enough.”

3. We are experienced in a breadth of programming languages.

Having been in the custom software development business for several years, our professionals specialize in a full range of programming languages and skill sets including:

-Microsoft .Net     -ASP.Net     -Javascript     -LINQ Visual Studio

-C++/C#         -MySQL       -Oracle       -OO Development

-Microsoft SQL Server        -Ruby         -Agile Development and Scrum.

Additionally, we do a considerable amount of Java development, and a lot of front-end development using javascript MVC frameworks like Angular, Knockout, Ember and Backbone. We also have software development teams working in PHP (Aura, Yii, Zend, Laravel, Symfony, Phalcon, CodeIgniter, Cake).

At Number8, we connect companies with IT talent and software developers that are fully trained in product development. By encouraging talent to come up with creative solutions, they remain motivated and positively contribute to a healthy company culture. If you’re interested in learning more about Number8 give us a call at (502) 890-7665.

3 Ted Talks That Will Change the Way You Think About Work

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Sometimes we all need a little pick me up during the work week. What better way to reboot the mind and motivate ourselves to keep carrying on than a really good Ted Talk? Here are our favorite talks that will help change the way you think about stress and work.

Kelly McGonigal- How to Make Stress Your Friend

In her 2013 Ted Talk, Psychologist Kelly McGonigal challenges the idea that stress is the cause of all our problems by siting a study that illustrates stress is actually only harmful if you believe it is. In this study, participants who experienced stress, but didn’t believe it was harmful, had a lower risk of death than those with less stress.  According to McGonigal, “How you think and act can transform your experience of stress.” Instead of viewing signs of anxiety and stress as the body failing to cope, think of it as the body getting energized and rising to a challenge. Re-framing the way we perceive stress often results in a healthier stress response, or what McGonigal calls a “biology of courage.”

Stressed at work? Watch it here: 

Shawn Achor- The Happy Secret to Better Work

Psychologist Shawn Achor’s 2011 Ted Talk aims to reverse the status quo when it comes to our formula for happiness and success. According to Achor, “Success is predicted by optimism levels, social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat.” Though we tend to think that working harder will give us more success and more success will make us happier, we are always changing the definition of success. “If happiness is on the opposite side of success,” says Achor, “your brain never gets there.” Instead, we should make use of what he calls the “happiness advantage.” When we’re happy, our brain performs better. This is because in addition to making us positive, dopamine also turns on all the learning centers in our brain. As a result, we’re often more productive when we’re happy and every single business outcome improves.

Interested in the happiness advantage? Watch here:

Theresa Glomb- Let’s Make Work Better

Organizational Psychologist Theresa Glomb’s Ted Talk addresses the negative conversation we so often have around work and offers advice on how we can take more power over our work lives. According to Glomb, the bad things that happen at work can have as much as 5 to 10 times the impact on our mood than the good things. To remedy this “asymmetry affect,” Glomb offers a few tricks to make us happier at work. Namely, work hard, have fun, choose kind and be present.

Looking for a fresh perspective at work? Watch here:

At Number8, we connect companies with IT talent and software developers that are fully trained in product development. By encouraging talent to come up with creative solutions, they remain motivated and positively contribute to a healthy company culture. If you’re interested in learning more about Number8 give us a call at (502) 890-7665. 

The Benefits of Working Remotely from a Number8 Developer

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This week on the blog, one of our very own developers turned team leaders, Max Madrigal shares his experience with working remotely.

Having joined the Number8 team in 2013, Max worked as a developer for 3 years. During that time he was given the opportunity to grow into a leadership role, and as a result has been a team lead for nearly 4 years now.

How did Max know he wanted to work remotely?

“After trying to have my own company in Costa Rica, I realized I wanted a job that could offer me a similar lifestyle to that of an entrepreneur. Though running my own company didn’t work out, the experience really taught me how to manage my own time.”

With the help of a few referrals, Max came aboard Number8.

“The recruiters at Number8 really helped me hone my English language skills. They saw something in me and took the time to pair me with the right customer.”

Everyday Madrigal enjoys the diversity of working remotely.

“I get to interact with people from all different backgrounds, and often in many different parts of the world.” And even though he often works from home or in an internet cafe, everyday is different. “I’m always meeting new people and doing new things; whether it’s researching solutions or developing new tech.”

Max is in charge of two development teams. 

As team lead, Max is tasked with reviewing their progress, coordinating meetings with the customer, as well as helping his team solve issues as they arise. “Often we work in the time zone of the user so we can have meetings with them.”

One of the many benefits of working remotely for Max has been the ability to travel.

Hungary, Colombia, Guatemala, Chicago, Argentina, Chile, Panama and Honduras are among the many places Madrigal has checked off his bucket list. He also spent 5 months in Europe exploring Germany, London, Venice, France and Norway, where he was able to see the northern lights. “There’s just nothing you can really compare that with.”

Throughout his travels, Madrigal was able to keep working without a beat.

During his free time, he has trained for and participated in 3 marathons. “I would get up at 5am and train for an hour, come home to shower and eat breakfast, and then work until disconnecting at 5pm.”

While working remotely usually comes with the misconception of always having to be on the clock, for Max it has been nothing short of a freeing experience.

“The support has been amazing. I have been able to communicate with the customer and manage my own time without any restrictions.” Depending on the day, Max often travels to his parent’s town to be with them or his brother’s family as well as friends within his local area.

When his nephew Sebastian was diagnosed with cancer last year, his brother’s family was forced to move to Costa Rica and then Argentina in order to receive the proper treatment. “It was a really hard time for the whole family. However, I was able to make the transition with my brother and sister-in law. I had the ability to go to the hospital and work around their needs. This really made the difference during a time period that would have otherwise made it difficult for the family to support themselves while getting the right treatment.” Sebastian has now recovered from the tumor, has his vision and is a healthy and happy boy enjoying his sister. “I am more than grateful for having the opportunity to stay extremely close to family.”

At Number 8, we help companies connect with qualified remote employees to help with software development. We also focus on helping companies improve their internal IT processes. If you’re interested in learning more about Number8 and what we do, give us a call at (502) 890-7665, or check out our information page here!